chaired by organising chairman William Ting Dau Hu (front raw, left).
KUCHING: More than 10,000 Christians from various churches and groups in Kuching are expected to partake in this year’s Kuching Christmas Parade to be held on this coming Saturday evening, 2 December. The participating churches and groups are to include Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Church, Method Church SCAC, Methodist Church SIAC, BEM (SIB) Church, The Seventh-Day Advent i s t Church, The Salvation Army, Sarawak Baptist Church, Blessed Church, Hope Church Kuching, Calvary Family Church, Geraja Grace Sentral (AOG), GIS Gospel Harvest Kuching, Sarawak Grace Church, Good News Fellowship, City Harvest Church, Fellowship of Evangelical Students (FES) and Latter Rain Church Kuching.
Organising chairperson William Ting Dau Hu, disclosed at a press conference yesterday that this year Parade is organised by Association of Churches, Sarawak and supported by Kuching Ministers’ Fellowship. The Parade will start at 6pm and expected to finish at 9.30pm.
Parade participants will first assemble at MBKS Jubilee Ground (adjacent to Chung Hua Primary School No.3) at 6pm and at 6.30pm there will be praise and worship session. At 7pm, the Parade will commence with the 73 participating groups parading their way from Jubilee Ground through HSBC roundabout-Jalan Padungan; Jalan Tun Abdul Rahim (Waterfront); Temple Street (Harbour View Hotel ) ; Wayang St reet (Star Cineplex); Jalan Tabuan (Ting & Ting Supermarket and Borneo Hotel); Jalan Ban Hock (Grand Continental Hotel and MBKS flats) and finally ending up at Jubilee Ground covering a total distance of about 4km and will take one and half hour to complete.
During the parade the r e will be activities like Caroling, Musical bands, Christmas Floats, Distribution of gifts, balloons, leaflets and others. The parade also displays colourful costumes out of the Bible’s characters such as Joseph and Mary, angels, shepherds, wise men from the East symbolising the ancient people visiting the newly born Jesus Christ during the first Christmas. There will be street performances by shofarists, native drummers, tambourine dancers and musical bands will also be carried out during the parade. The Boys’ Brigade and Girls’ Brigade are sending seven musical bands to join in the parade. The members of the parade will be giving away Christmas gifts, balloons and others to the public.
More than 15 colourful Christmas floats will be presented by the churches during the parade. According to Ting, the theme of this year’s Christmas parade is ‘Hope in Christ / Pengharapan Dalam Yesus Kristus’.
Methodist Church SCAC is the organising church for this year’s parade. Elder Ambrose Linang , Secretary General of Association of Churches Sarawak, calls on all Christians and non-Christians to join the parade and celebrate Christmas in harmony. All parade members are encouraged to prepare Christmas gifts which will be distributed to the public at 8pm during the parade.
The public are encouraged to witness the parade and celebrate Christmas in this wonderful street event of Kuching. Traffic along the parade route will be affected from 7pm to 9pm and road near to MBKS Jubilee Ground will be restricted to traffic from 5pm to 10pm on Saturday due to the parade. Ting said this will be the 11th year, the Kuching Christmas Parade is being organised. The first one was initiated by Methodist Church with only 3,000 participants.
