Bishop Ng Moon Hing giving his welcome speech
It was an atmosphere of celebration on 10 April 2010 as the Diocese gathered at the Holiday Villa Subang to celebrate 40 years of God’s Blessings to this Diocese. A distinguished gathering of over 600 people of Bishops, Clergy, and Heads of churches, friends and members from the various parishes in the Diocese were present. We were honoured to have with us the Archbishop of the Province, The Most Rev Dr. John Chew, the Provincial Bishops and the former Archbishops, Bishop Dr. Moses Tay and Bishop Datuk Yong Ping Chung.
In welcoming the guests, the Rev Fred David, Chairman of the Year of Celebration and the Thanksgiving Dinner gave thanks to God for His goodness and said that this was one of the many events that was being planned to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Diocese of West Malaysia. The hope of the Diocese is that this will inspire us to move into the next season of 40 years bringing growth and maturity to the Diocese.
The event then continued with a Thanksgiving liturgy lead by the Archdeacon of Upper Central Archdeaconry, which was followed by a time of High Praise led in 4 languages by worship leaders for 4 churches backed by a 40 voice back-up singers from churches in the Klang Valley, dressed in black with colourful scarves. It was indeed a great time of worship in the languages used in the Diocese. The music was provided by musicians from one of our new church plants, Peace Community Church, Bukit Jalil.
The Diocesan Bishop, Rt. Rev. Ng Moon Hing in his message thanked our visitors local and overseas, Churches and from the community for taking time to be with us. He highlighted that the Diocese had moved from its humble beginnings of a few congregations to more that 200 hundred today and observed that it was still growing. He challenged the Diocese to be thinking of moving with the times and being relevant to the nation. Thus new ventures have been initiated in the fields of social concern, crisis relief, early intervention programmes, orphanages and senior citizen homes.
During the course of the dinner, we were entertained by various cultural programmes prepared by the Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil Ministry Boards of the Diocese. It was a spectacular sight to see the diversity of our Diocese and each language group taking its rightful place in the life of the Diocese. We praise God for this.
Cultural dance performance by the Iban group
Dance performance by the Board of the Tamil Works
Song presentation by the Board of Chinese Works
As the event drew to a close we witnessed the history of the Diocese in a video and power point presentation. A bonus for the night was a video clip of the last Bishop of Singapore and Malaya, the Rt. Rev Chiu Ban It. Sending his greetings for the occasion and recollecting a little of the inauguration of the Diocese of West Malaysia. He wished the Diocese God’s Blessing in all our undertakings. At that juncture Datin Julia Yong was escorted up on stage to read a message of greetings and best wishes, from Puan Sri Roland, wife of the first Bishop of the Diocese of West Malaysia. Julia is also the daughter of Tan Sri Roland Koh and the wife of Bishop Datuk Yong Ping Chung.
Archbishop John Chew brought us greetings from the Province of South East Asia and gave us the Benediction.
All Glory must go to the Lord for his goodness and faithfulness to our Diocese. But our thanks go to all who contributed to the success of the night. Special mention must go to:
- The Diocesan Office Staff
- The media production team headed by Isabelle Ng
- The worship and music team lead by Mabel Cheah and Prakash N
- The Thanksgiving Dinner Sub Committee
- The Masters of Ceremony
Rev Fred David
Organising Committee Chairman
To view the pictures taken at the Thanksgiving Dinner, please click here.
DioceseWM 40th Anniversay Dinner
