Tudor and Nicola Thomas-Botwood share with us the journey from being multinational travelers to ministering in the rural community of Llidiart-y-waen near Rhayader in Mid-Wales. We hear of how they have seen God at work in the communities around them…
“There’s never been a separation here between the church and the community – many people are just deeply part of both!”
After a long and multinational journey, God has led Tudor and Nicola Thomas-Botwood back to the rural community of Llidiart-y-waen near Rhayader in Mid-Wales. And as they and the church explore the next steps, the word ‘community’ seems to be at the heart…
Called back
“I grew up around here in a farming family,” Tudor explains, “but our careers in army chaplaincy had taken Nicola and me all over the place.” When his mother had an accident towards the end of the Covid period, it became clear that they needed to find ways to support her by living nearer. As it happens, Tudor’s first pastorate decades previously had included Beulah, Llidiart-y-waen, and when the church found out about the move they invited Nicola to take services.
“Before long the church wanted a conversation with us about joint ministry – and we had to tell them we weren’t ready,” Nicola says with a chuckle. “And they said – ‘tell us when you’re ready then!’”
Eventually, they came to an agreement around a shared, part-time ministry with this small rural church of twelve members, and large extended families.
Rural community
“The area has changed more quickly than usual since Covid,” Tudor explains, “we’ve got people around here now who go back four or five generations – and then on the other hand people who’ve only been here four or five years.”
But it seems like many of the newcomers to mid-Wales were looking to join a community, and in an area like this the importance of community has never really diminished.
“The key is being involved locally,” Nicola goes on. Both Thomas-Botwoods quickly got involved with various groups and initiatives in the area, including the Rhayader running club, the local nursing home, St John’s Ambulance and schools’ work.
“It helps enormously with people’s perception, and everything is linked in a community like this. So you’re doing an assembly in a primary school one day, then you might be helping one of those kids’ grandmother the next through St John’s. Our church ministry is part-time, and that gives us time to be involved in other things as volunteers, not just ‘ministers’.”
A growing church community?
Tradition is clearly a strong part of church life at Beulah, which has a small older chapel building surrounded by green fields and hills. But as Tudor says, “the church is very willing to experiment. The congregation is aware, I think, that we’re ministering on the cusp of opportunity.”
Both children and youth work have grown of late, and in ones and twos they are seeing new people turn up, looking to find out more. In fact there is only one room for the childrens’ work at the moment so, as Nicola points out, ‘we’re not really trying to make things grow!’
They both reflect on the new spiritual openness around them – and what that means now in a church that has always been a key part of the close-knit society around it.
“We don’t have to think, ‘oh, how do we reach these people?’”, Tudor muses. “I took a funeral recently, and a couple there – they knew who I was because that’s how it is around here – they asked me to go and visit them to talk about Christian faith.” That is clearly an import part of the dynamic, with people bringing each other along.
“Look,” Nicola finishes, “the church is leading here – or the Holy Spirit is. And when new or old faces turn up, they feel comfortable. There’s a welcome for them! God does the rest.”