Rehoboth Welsh Church

Rehoboth Welsh Chapel (Capel Cymraeg Rehoboth) is located in Delta, Pennsylvania, USA (in Southern York County, where the Susquehanna River crosses the Mason-Dixon Line). It is a non-denominational Christian church which specializes in conducting religious services and musical events in the Welsh tradition. It regularly conducts bi-lingual (Welsh/English) worship services. To see a history of the church, click here.

A worship service is held at the church on Sundays. (See the link to events here to see the times.) There is also a Welsh Language Class which meets on Sundays to study conversational Welsh. Both the class and the service are open to everyone. There is no charge for the Welsh language instruction and beginners are welcome at any time.

The worship services of the Church are varied to meet the spiritual needs of a wide group of people, from the stately traditional liturgies of classical Western Christianity, to the evangelical enthusiasm of the hymn-singing festivals. The one feature that is common to all of our services is the love of singing, and that is revealed in the joy that we experience. Of course, as Celts, we also love to sing sad songs! Either way, our worship leaves us better prepared to meet whatever we might encounter in our lives.

The larger part of our services is conducted in English, and the portions that are in Welsh are clearly explained so that everyone can follow even if they know no Welsh at all. We would love to have you visit us, because we take pleasure in sharing our heritage with the community.

The Rev. Richard Price Baskwill is the Pastor of Rehoboth.

On the first Sunday in May and the second Sunday in October the church holds a Gymanfa Ganu (Singing Festival) at 2:30 P.M. These highly popular events draw hundreds of visitors from throughout the Eastern United States and Canada.

Do you think that Welsh must be a difficult language to learn? Well, our Welsh language class at Rehoboth has been thinking about that question. (We are adults with English as our native language, and most of us have some knowledge of another language besides Welsh.) We have been examining other languages of the world partly to increase our familiarity with non-English languages and partly to determine patterns that are common to Welsh or English. While doing this, we have noted that some languages would be easier than Welsh for an English-speaking person to learn, some would be harder, and some would be about the same. Click here to see a report on our results so far!

WE WOULD BE HAPPY TO ARRANGE A WELSH HERITAGE TOUR OF THE DELTA AREA FOR YOU OR YOUR GROUP! For details, please contact Glenn Grove at (717)456-7379.

Rehoboth enjoys close ties with several organizations in Wales. The Chapel has hosted concerts by several visiting choirs from Wales, including the Oakdale Youth Choir, the South Glamorgan Youth Choir, and Côr Meibion Brythoniaid from North Wales. The church has twice sponsored tours of the Washington-Baltimore-Philadelphia-New York area by Côr Meibion Pendyrus (Pendyrus Male Choir) from the Rhondda, South Wales.

As a result of the inspiring visit of the Pendyrus Male Choir in 1984, members of Rehoboth Welsh Church formed an independent concert choir of their own named Rehoboth Welsh Choir (Côr Cymraeg Rehoboth). The choir has grown and flourished. In 1992 it conducted a concert tour of Wales and won a prize at the prestigious and highly competitive Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales. In 1998 it conducted a concert tour of Wales, England and France, culminating in a concert at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The choir continues to have an active concert schedule.

Rehoboth was also the sponsoring organization for the Welsh National Gymanfa Ganu (an annual event in which about 2,000 people take part in musical and cultural events) held in Harrisburg, PA in 1995. The Church, along with Rehoboth Welsh Choir (Côr Cymraeg Rehoboth) and the Welsh National Gymanfa Ganu Association, sponsored it again in 2002.

Delta, along with its sister community of Cardiff, Maryland, has a strong Welsh cultural heritage. The communities celebrated the First Annual Delta-Cardiff Heritage Festival in October of 1997. It was a great success! The Annual Festivals continue this successful tradition. Click here for information about the Festival.

We are proud to maintain the Welsh heritage in our area.

Our mailing address is P.O. Box 248, Delta, PA 17314. Our physical location is 1029 Atom Road, which is just on the northeastern edge of Delta's Main Street.

Map of Main St
Delta, PA 17314-8953

Here are links to some other interesting Welsh-related web sites that you may wish to explore: