"For amid this turmoil opportunities will abound that must be exploited" and "winning of fresh recruits"

As humanity is tossed and tormented by the ravages inflicted upon it by a civilization gone out of control, let us keep our heads and hearts focused on the divine tasks set before us. For amid this turmoil opportunities will abound that must be exploited "for the purpose of spreading far and wide the knowledge of the redemptive power of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh and for enlisting fresh recruits in the ever-swelling army of His followers."

(Universal House of Justice, Riḍván 1996)

In a passage written on 18 July 1953, in the early months of the Ten Year Crusade, Shoghi Effendi, referring to the vital need to ensure through the teaching work a "steady flow" of "fresh recruits to the slowly yet steadily advancing army of the Lord of Hosts," stated that this flow would "presage and hasten the advent of the day which, as prophesied by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, will witness the entry by troops of peoples of divers nations and races into the world."

(Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1986-2001)

In his last Riḍván Message the beloved Guardian called upon the friends in all continents to exert strenuous efforts to assure the “early attainment of the goal of five thousand Bahá’í centers in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.” By Riḍván two years later, less than eighteen months after his passing, this goal was not only attained but exceeded, when the number of localities where Bahá’ís reside reached a total of over five thousand two hundred. This Riḍván, as a result of the continuing dispersion of pioneers and the winning of fresh recruits to the ranks of the Faith, the total has risen to the truly impressive level of nearly six thousand five hundred, a gain of no less than four thousand centers since the inception of the World Crusade in 1953.

(Baha'i New, Year 118, June 1961)