Source: Baha'i World News Service

http://news.bahai.org/story.cfm?storyid=350

On February 8, 2005 the Baha'i World News Service reported, "A recent visit by three Baha'is to these islands in the north Atlantic Ocean had its origins in a decision taken some 50 years earlier. In January 1954 Howard and JoAnne Menking decided to leave their comfortable home in the United States to introduce the Baha'i Faith to Cape Verde, then a poverty-stricken Portuguese colony. They were among volunteers participating in a decade-long (1953-63) invitation to establish the Faith in countries where there were no Baha'is. By the end of the decade the number of national communities had more than doubled. The Menkings left Cape Verde in 1959 after the local Baha'i community was established. A half-century later, in November 2004, Mr. Menking returned for the jubilee celebrations of that community, accompanied by his daughter, Cristina Menking-Hoggatt, and her son, Cheyenne, 13."