We recently sat down with Chris Thomas from Bethesda, Rogerstone to hear more about her work in sharing the Bible with children. We started by asking about her life journey. “It’s lovely to meet you, Chris! Tell us a little about how you came to faith?“
I had the privilege of being brought up at Tirzah Baptist, Cwm near Ebbw Vale but I can remember clearly the time when it all came to life for me through a preacher using the illustration of a penny! A coin becomes dirty as it gets handed on from person to person but can then become good as new by going back to the mint – somehow that spoke to me about the truth of the gospel and I was baptized at age 11.
You’ve been very involved over your lifetime in sharing the faith with children. How did that come about?
After living in Swansea for 15 years, my husband and I moved to Rogerstone, and we had a strong desire to be involved in church life. We became members at Bethesda, Rogerstone twenty-five years ago. I eventually became part of the outreach team majoring on children and schools’ work, which was great. But there was a particular point when I spoke to the head at the local primary school, who had had bad experiences with people from churches in the past. And that’s where the seed for ICE (Initiatives in Christian Education) Wales came from – a body that could do Christian work in schools with the credibility and the structures to work well within the requirements of the education sector.
There was also a vision of Wales, and a wheel with spokes. It’s been amazing to see how the work has grown from Rogerstone to now cover much of south-eastern Wales.
Tell us a bit about what ICE is and what you do?
It started out with assemblies, then lunchtime Bible clubs – and it’s grown from there. We always work with local churches. We train their volunteers to lead the sessions in schools. That’s really important – it’s local Christians working with their local schools, serving them and building up strong relationships with them.
We’re not allowed to go into schools and preach – but we can go and explore stories from the Bible. So we’ve developed lessons, workshops and use the internationally known Walk Through the Bible resources. Now with the new Welsh curriculum and the ‘cynefin’ (local area) theme, we’ve been able to develop resources about Mary Jones, Florrie Evans and Robert Jermaine Thomas – linking their lives with Welsh culture, the world, the Bible and Christianity. These have proved to be very popular!
You’ve clearly been immersed in this. Tell us how this has encouraged you in your Christian walk?
There are so many encouragements. Just recently, for instance, a local grandmother came up to me in Tesco’s and asked whether I’d been doing the Bible stories with the children in school. Her grandson had come home and told her the story with enthusiasm. I’ve been in the local hospital and had a doctor turn around and repeat the story of Genesis to me with the hand signs we’d taught her when she was in school. I believe the Holy Spirit takes these Bible stories, fixes them in children’s minds – and those seeds will grow in the fullness of time.
Thank you, Chris. Why not take a moment to pray for the work of ICE Wales? And if you would like to partner with them in your locality, you can contact through their website: www.icewales.co.uk