Princes Street Evangelical Baptist Church, Barry, 125 years old

The Princes Street Evangelical Baptist Church first opened its doors in 1899 and celebrated its anniversary on October 9.

According to historic records, the first site for the church was located between Queen Street and High Street, where at the time it was under care of Pastor John Tyler.

The church is now under the influence of Pastor Kevin Ruwersma and his wife Anna Ruwersma.

Kevin Ruwersma and his wife Anna Ruwersma next to their sunday school (Image: Kevin and Anna Ruwersma) The religious couple, originally from Michigan in Americ,a moved to the area 8 years ago and celebrated the historic anniversary with a coinciding ‘harvest service.’

Barry and District news asked what modern impact the church has on the community, having been here 125 years. Pastor Kevin said: “We’ve been here since 2017, and there were about 6 individuals left attending the church and so we now run about 70-80 people and 25 children every Sunday.

“So, a lot of young families in the church and we’re trying to connect with our community.”

Kevin continued: “We’ve done quite a bit with youth clubs and Sunday schools with the children, and we do take up a collection for mission projects we support in Brazil, India, and some here in the UK.

“With our harvest service we created collection of food for the Vale food bank.”

Anna added: “It’s quite an active thriving church, when we came 8 years ago it was just 6 people and now it’s like 80 -100 people every Sunday.

“We do our Totally Tots outreach ministry and that’s for parents and toddlers and I believe we have probably the largest parent toddler group in the Barry and within the Vale. We run anywhere from 150 to 200 adults and children a week.

“That’s been really wonderful, we’ve seen how that’s helped the community, and we get a lot of wonderful feedback.”The Princes Street Evangelical Baptist Church (Image: Kevin and Anna Ruwersma) Pat Marshalsea 92, has been attending the church for more than 75 years with her sister Pam. She said: “Since Kevin and Anna have come, we’ve got a lot more people coming to church we were on the point of closing down.

“I was a teenager when I first started going to church and people died because it’s been going on for such a long time, they gradually got older and now there are some older people but not quite so many.”

She continued: “So luckily now we have got a lot of young people.”

Since Anna and Kevin have been involved a new additional building about 100 meters from the main property is used by the couple to teach Sunday school in.

The church continues to make history and is holding a ceremony this Sunday for members of the community that wish to be baptised.