No less than fourteen national Hazíratu’l-Quds, out of the forty-nine listed in the provisions of the Ten-Year Plan and which are to serve as seats of future Bahá’í National Spiritual Assemblies, have already been purchased, largely through the liberal contributions of the Hand of the Cause, Amelia Collins. These buildings, involving the expenditure of over two hundred thousand dollars, are situated in five continents of the globe; in London, Bern and Vienna in the European continent; in Anchorage, Lima and Panama City in the American continent; in Tokyo, Istanbul, Kábul, Bahrayn and Suva in the Asiatic continent; in Johannesburg and Tunis in the African continent; and in Auckland in the Antipodes. Negotiations for the purchase of three additional Hazíratu’l-Quds, in the cities of Rome, Jakarta and Colombo are moreover under way, while funds, totalling one hundred and thirty thousand dollars have been pledged for the purchase, in the immediate future, of twenty-seven other Hazíratu’l-Quds in Latin America and the European continent. Furthermore, the sum of fifty thousand dollars has been contributed by the Hand of the Cause, Amelia Collins, as yet another evidence of her munificence, for the purpose of establishing Bahá’í national endowments in no less than fifty countries, situated in all five continents of the globe. A plot has, moreover, been purchased in South Africa, a property offered in the Aleutian Islands and a fund initiated for the same purpose in Alaska and Finland. SIXTEEN NEW NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES BY RIDVAN, 1957 Such marvelous progress, involving such diversified activities, extending over so immense a field, within such a brief space of time, and notwithstanding the smallness of the numbers of the participants in this Global Crusade, the meagerness of their resources and the restrictions imposed upon them by those who are either unsympathetic to their Cause, or alarmed by their rising influence, or envious of the pervasive power of the Faith they champion, impels me to announce, in anticipation of the opening of the third phase of the Ten-Year Plan, the formation, during Ridván, 1957, in addition to the three Regional National Spiritual Assemblies to be elected in 1956 in the African continent, of thirteen National Spiritual Assemblies, some of which will be regional, others independent, some interim and others permanent.