Newly retired Jeff and Sarah Streiff have returned and are giving back to the community that was their first home after marrying.

Alongside other believers and visiting Bahá’ís in Dalton, Georgia, the heavily Latino “Carpet Capital of the World,” the Streiffs are putting to use the cross-cultural skills they honed while serving at the Bahá’í Unity Center in metro Atlanta and working in China.

In so doing, notes Sarah Streiff, they are “watering the seeds already planted by so many for so long” and sowing a few of their own.

“The flame has been fueled by a very experienced younger Bahá’í — and the bounty of our being retired, so we have time and resources,” says Streiff. They are offering a small apartment in their home to that younger Bahá’í, Angelica Johnson of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who is able to serve full time.

Also answering the call to aid efforts in Dalton are Joel and Roni Smith, who travel around 70 miles from Dallas, Georgia.

Joel Smith says on a recent visit they invited residents of an apartment complex to bring their kids to children’s classes in a community center, with 12 youngsters joining in as a result.

Smith also spoke about the Bible at an evening fireside attended by 12 people. “I teach a comparative religion class … so I have many presentations already prepared on my iPad. We used these presentations as a basis for a lively, yet very friendly, discussion.”

The Smiths’ interest in continuing to visit “is very encouraging,” says Sarah Streiff. “Now we know what [Joel’s] skills are that can contribute to the efforts here. And we love him.”

The Dalton Bahá’í community as a whole has been energized since the bicentenary of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh, says Streiff.

“We gathered for [the] bicentenary in a small group of four at a believer’s home,” she relates. “The believer who graciously hosted us had set a goal to finish remodeling his house by the bicentenary and wanted to host.

“It seemed an impossible task, but he wanted to give that service to Bahá’u’lláh and he had to do most of the work with his own hands as his workers were nowhere to be found. He is 74, so he struggled so.”

But there they celebrated, and most of the time was spent answering a guest’s questions about Bahá’u’lláh. “The lady … still attends our gatherings,” says Streiff.

The Streiffs themselves are plunging into a “diversity of opportunities” that are far “out of our comfort zones,” says Sarah Streiff.

Included, she says, is a study group on The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights lawyer and scholar.

“We basically were trying to find like-minded people to address issues, as we had had so many people whose eyes glazed over when we mentioned religion,” says Streiff. “We needed a new approach, an action approach.

“We established a firm foundation of friendship and a willingness to share the realities of racism with the hope of finding solutions and actions to address this most challenging issue.”

A member of the study group who is a new lawyer for Georgia Legal Services in Dalton has volunteered to help with the children’s classes. A youth also responded to serve the children’s class “and her family asked us for a fireside,” says Streiff.

In another outgrowth of the study group, the Streiffs are mentoring at the county Daily Reporting Center for people re-entering society after being incarcerated.

It all adds up for the couple “most every day to teaching and consolidation, consulting, planning, action, and reflection,” says Sarah Streiff. “Lots of learning.”

As Smith sees it, “People today are looking for positive changes in their lives. These children’s classes and these fireside discussions offer hope that there are people in the world who are working to help make things better.”