Article on JAINA Legislative Conference: Peace, Harmony & Non-Violence
held at Rayburn House Office Bldg., Capitol Hill, Washington, DC
on October 6-7, 2009
President's Welcome Message
Jai Jinendra.
It is almost end of year 2009 and it has been one fantastic year. Thank you all for providing strong and loving support to entire executive committee during year 2009. Special thanks goes to each one of you who devoted their time, effort and means to make our community strong.
During early August, we celebrated our temple's 20th anniversary. It was such a joyous celebration. We had about 225 people took part in the event that was performed and blessed by Shree Narendrabhai Nandu. Special thanks go to Kantaben Dharamsi for making all arrangements for the Pooja programs and hosting Narendrabhai and party; to Kanti and Meeta Ganger for sponsoring the dinner; and Harshit Shah and his team of volunteers who cooked a full meal for 225 people on temple premises for August 8th Swamivatsalya dinner. Diwali was also celebrated the Jain way with all day program performed at our temple on 18th September by various group (See details inside in past program section).
October 7th will likely be inscribed in golden letters in history of Jainism in America. On this day "Ahimsa Day" was promoted by the group of people from "JAINA", our Jain Society members, along with American Jewish Committee and AAPI on Capitol Hill. Congressman McDermott Said that "After long time and loss of loved ones and billions of $ in war, finally America realizes that war is not the solution for any dispute with other countries". "Ahimsa (Non-Violence) is the only right way of life to win any war". See more on "Ahimsa" day in the past programs section by Dr. Sushil Jain
Now our society is 29 years old and temple is 20 years old (rather 20 years young), time is ripe to move to a new bigger and authentic Jain Temple to suit our society's current and future needs. Executive committee members, board of Trustees' & Temple committee have very actively started on the new temple project. I want to thank members of the society for empowering Board of Trustees to proceed with land purchase for new temple during the special general body meeting held on Nov 1. See inside for more details on progress of new temple construction project.
Please attend our next General Body Meeting and elections on Sunday, December 13th. I urge and invite you to lend your hand in making our community ever more vibrant. If you have any ideas, or want to volunteer, please write me an e-mail (ashok.shah@fgould.com) or call me @ 703-946-4417. Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Mr. Ashok Shah, President
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