The 1st Thomas Generation- Ted & Beth Thomas
Welcome to our family's site!

This is the home of our 10th Generation project.  In a nutshell, we plan to build a legacy over the next 40+ years of pictures, stories, articles and audio/video records.  Part of it will be family history, part current events and part messages and thoughts for future generations.  The ultimate goal is to create a body of knowledge & resources focused on raising up our 10th generation for the glory of Jesus Christ and the building of His kingdom.  Tragically, our project to assemble memories & messages began in 2005 with the death of the one person in our family who could have carried on the family name.  Unless one of our daughters marries a Thomas, our 10th generation will include no Thomas descended from Ted & Beth.  This makes it more clear to us than ever that our legacy must be a spiritual one (passed on by faith) rather than a genetic one.  Indeed, for our Lord it has been the same-- no earthly wife or children, yet by the spiritual power of new birth now (and physical resurrection at the last) we are all called by His name.

This is an unusual and admittedly audacious goal.  For one thing, it might seem presumptuous to even assume that there will be a 10th Thomas generation.  After all, isn't the world going to you-know-where in a handbasket?  Isn't technology changing things so fast that it's hard to visualize the world our grandchildren will live in, much less 300 years from now?  In other words, isn't this whole idea a little crazy?!  Indeed.  Yet, living by faith in a world which is focused on the secular here-and-now is guaranteed to be an "alternative" lifestyle.  To clarify this point, here is our family mission statement:
  • In this generation we will live by faith in the God Who made us and sent his Son to redeem us from sin and death.  While loving Him with all our hearts and striving every day to love and serve our neighbor, we will also lay the groundwork for our 10th generation.
  • In our lives, careers, recreations and finances, we will take the long view.  That is, we will build value in terms of a godly example, spiritual family heritage and financial prudence such that we leave the foundation for our next nine generations.
  • We will start, fund and guide a non-profit foundation whose goal will be simple-- to expand and support the vision of at least 2 to the tenth power (1024) of totally committed Thomas descendants in our 10th generation.  These descendants will either be missionaries (or financially support the mission of) spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout every culture on every humanly inhabited planet in their generation.
  • In order to build this vision we will make recordings, create memory books, write stories and letters and teach our children to do the same, all focused on keeping our vision alive.  As each generation adds to this store of knowledge, some of our descendants will catch the vision for their families and begin to do the same thing, perhaps for their 10th generation.
  • Sometime in the spring or summer of the 21st birthday year of our first 10th generation child, the foundation will begin the fulfillment of our dream.  Using the resources saved and invested for almost 300 years, it will send out and support all in our family line who wish to be gospel missionaries, and after another 50 years the remaining assets and property will be disbursed to worthy causes and the foundation dissolved.
All these, along with a number of other questions are quite reasonable to ask, and we are working on filling out this mission statement for the 10th Generation project over the next year.  In the meantime, you can see some pictures here and read our latest newsletter here.  You can also check out the latest news on our family blog, which is at Blog.10thGen.org, or you can see the progress on our new home at www.ChenowethEast.com.  Enjoy!