1953-08-11 — Virginia Orbison arrived in the Balearic Islands from a pioneer post in Spain and was named a Knight of Bahá'u'lláh for the Balearic Islands. [BW13:449]
It was neither her first nor her last pioneer experience. Between 1942 and 1946 she pioneered to Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil. After World War II she went to Madrid, Spain where she helped raise the first local spiritual assembly and she did the same thing in Barcelona the following year.
In July of 1953 she went to the Stockholm Intercontinental Teaching Conference where she offered to pioneer to Mallorca in one of the Balearic Islands, She stayed about one year before returning to Barcelona in August of 1954 where she attended the Iberian Teaching Conference that was attended by 60 people. Late that nine, she and nine others were arrested by the police and interrogated for 18 hours. They had thought that the Bahá'í were Communists.
In 1956 she moved to Portugal where she was elected to the first Iberian Regional Spiritual Assembly. After three years she was forced to leave by the authorities because of her Bahá'í activities, holding property and owning a telephone.
She was asked to go to Luxembourg where she spent nine years but made little progress in establishing the Faith. She was then asked to got to Malaga, Spain and by 1972 Malaga had a local spiritual assembly so she pioneered to Margella in 1979.
The National Spiritual Assembly asked her to write a history of the Faith in Spain which was completed in 1980.
As was her wish, she passed to the Abha Kingdom in 1985, still a pioneer. [KoB346-347; Wikipedia]
See also Also see Bahá'í World 19 pages 715-721 or 692-697 in the print version and Bahá'í News #586 January 1980 p2-5.
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