This year Open the Book celebrates 20 years of Bible Story based assemblies in Primary Schools - what an amazing milestone!  Open the Book teams all over the UK got together to celebrate in many different ways; some of us were greatly encouraged by attending a Service of Celebration in Colwyn Bay, along with Storytellers from across North East Wales. Most of all though, we wanted to be sure we marked the Anniversary with our schools.

It's not hard to spot a common theme in our recent assemblies - danger and rescue!  In small teams (of local church volunteers and workers) as Open the Book Storytellers, we get lots of opportunities to reflect on key Bible stories.  We get together regularly to plan how we'll tell the stories in Primary Schools, planning a couple of assemblies at a time.  There are often new ideas to help bring the story to life and people far more talented at such things than I am get busy making amazing outfits and props over the days to come.  We've got a great selection by now, as you can see above.  Some of us tell the story in schools just once, but many are involved in more than one school.  For us, telling and retelling these stories leads to reflection on the millenia-long relationship between God and people.  The relationship has had a lot of ups and downs - and many divine rescues have been needed!  The rescuer we've presented lately have often been of a surprising nature - a boy save his nation from oppression by taking on a giant threat; an enormous fish saves a drowning runaway prophet; a prince saves his best friend from his murderous father the King and an angel closes the mouths of deadly lions!  
I'm encouraged to know that, no matter what the predicament, there's a God who is able to rescue me.  I may not know how the help will come, but I know who will send it - as David says:
Psalm 121
​'1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains--
    where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.'

​Blog Author - Wendy Swan

Preparations are under way for our annual Explore Easter events.  With volunteers from local churches we bring the Passion week events to life for Junior pupils.  They get to take part in the story as we re-create scenes and follow Jesus and his disciples through the events that led to the cross and the empty tomb.
We've hosted the event at Ebenezer church for Mold schools to attend and have also taken the event to outlying schools and utilised halls, classrooms and outdoor areas to create a sense of travelling along.
This year we hope to be able to bring more pupils out of their schools by working with village churches who will host us and take par in the story themselves.

King's Christian Centre has undergone major repairs and renovation to the roof of their building - Pendref Chapel on Bailey Hill.  Pupils from Ysgol Bryn Gwalia visited the 'Living with History' exhibition which was part of the church's re-opening on October 7th.  The pupils heard from Wendy Swan of Agathos about the history of the building and of the Welsh Methodist congregation who built the chapel and occupied the church for many years.  The pupils had fun exploring the renovated area and answering Treasure Hunt questions.  Each pupil left with an especially commissioned book which imaginatively painted a picture of a child's life whilst teaching much about local history and the history of Welsh Christianity in North Wales. In all 500 copies of the beautifully illustrated bilingual book were given out to pupils.

​By Wendy Swan

Today on some informal lunchtime schools work we went into the local high school to talk to the pupils about "body image" and what promotes and what doesn't promote a positive body image; paying particular attention to the media and the pressures on young people today to achieve the "perfect" body. I was inspired to make a poster of images from celebrity magazines, most of which were known to be photoshopped, and set these images in contrast to the Bible's definition of beauty from 1 Peter 3 - 3:4 "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewellery or fine clothes. Rather it should be that of your inner self, the unfailing beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's eyes". 

Today was the third in a week of assemblies at Mold Alun High School. The theme of the assemblies is around the scripture from Ecclesiastes 4 Verse 17 which says "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not easily broken." The assembly started with an illustration of strength: Wendy told the pupils how she has been working out recently to build her muscles up so she can beat her friends at a tug-of-war and so I was ready at one end of the rope and she at the other.