Inside the largest annual gathering of BEARING WITNESS
G RADUATING with an MA and starting a nine-to-five job as a design engineer left James Repetti feeling happiness was only “skin deep”.
The 26-year-old from Port Talbot wanted more meaning in his life and says he found it joining the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Yesterday he was baptised in front of thousands of fellow believers at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena.
James joined 10 others fully immersed, one by one, into a waistdeep pool of water in a public declaration of their faith at the biggest annual gathering of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Wales.
Almost all 8,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Wales attended the 2018 Regional Convention held over the last weekend of July and first weekend of August – with 4,000 at the arena across the three days of each weekend.
Followers describe the annual summer convention as the highlight in their calendar as they greet old friends and family, sing, pray and learn the bible together in a series of talks and videos beamed to the capacity crowd.
While many non-followers will have met and spoken to Jehovah’s Witnesses as they hand out leaflets on streets or knock on doors to explain and encourage more to join the faith, some of their beliefs may come as a surprise.
Not only do Jehovah’s Witnesses not celebrate Christmas and birthdays or have blood transfusions, they also don’t vote in any elections and refused to take part in the Brexit referendum.
While others speak of a divided Britain they say they are united by the bible.
Looking around the arena, it is packed with smiling people in their best clothes greeting one another, high-fiving and hugging.
There is a mere handful of empty seats, while believers in wheelchairs line the sides of the aisles and others stand at the back balancing babies on their hips or swaying on their feet as they join the singing which opens proceedings.
Upstairs another 300 are attending the simultaneous Welshlanguage convention.
“You can learn something in any language but there is the language of the heart,” says Angharad Riggs, who has travelled from her home in Bagillt, Flintshire, for the convention. When I read the bible in Welsh it touches me in a way it does not in English.”
Brought up bilingual in a traditionally Welsh-speaking farming family, Angharad, 50, says she is delighted the Welsh language arm of the convention moved to Cardiff two years ago.
“Welsh touches me more, especially when we sing in Welsh it makes me cry” says Angharad, who chose to be baptised as a Jehovah’s Witness aged 16 after her parents, dairy farmers, joined the faith when she was a child.
“Dad was a chapel-goer and mum went to the Church in Wales.”
A wide smile crosses Angharad’s face as she describes what joining thousands of fellow believers at the convention means. “It is the highlight of the year. I love being in an environment of happiness, kindness and contented people. My family come and my friends are here. You have your sphere from home here that extends to wider family and community and to Wales.
“I am part of something worldwide – that’s a thrill.”
Angharad’s family is a reflection of the diversity in evidence across the arena, with people of all ages, backgrounds and races represented.
Her sister-in-law, now a Witness, comes from a Punjabi family in Birmingham, attends a Welsh medium congregation in North Wales and will also go to the Punjabi Jehovah’s Witness convention in her home city later this month.
“Teaching bible in the mother tongue reaches the heart,” points out preacher Sue Mumford, 61, who retired from her job as an administrator in the NHS in Cardiff a few years ago to concentrate on preaching and teaching at the 155-strong Cardiff and Canton Jehovah’s Witness congregation.
Sue, the oldest of four girls brought up by a chapel-going Jehovah’s Witness convert mother, did not join the faith until she became a mother herself aged 30 and felt it was the best way to protect her daughter.
“My mother was a Sunday school