Barbara Bode Snyder

Barbara Bode Snyder worked for ten years for IBM as an applied mathematician /programmer and as a systems engineer. She taught electronics and computer technology for 20 years at San Jose City College and loved to make complicated ideas simple for her students.

She and her husband have lived and worked and volunteered on all six continents where there are people. She also taught Sunday school for twenty-five years, and she was best known for making Bible stories become real for students of all ages.

When she and her husband lived and worked as volunteers for the Church of South India in Chennai (formerly Madras), they became very aware of the powerful legacy of Thomas the Apostle, who was martyred just up the street from where they lived in Mylapore, right on the Bay of Bengal. Many of their Indian friends had numerous stories to tell about Thomas and how his influence is still felt all over India. Barbara had always been curious about the apostle who traveled the farthest and about the Christian communities he established in India, which are still going strong. She always felt that Thomas the Apostle was a much deeper thinker than the “Doubting Thomas” portrayal he often received. And so she wrote his story.