Hope Church London 9th Anniversary Celebration
13 October 2007

It seems like yesterday when we had our first ever Sunday service in London. On that day Pastor PK preached to 3 people marking the birth of Hope Church London and the beginning of a wonderful adventure.

This year on the 13th of October we celebrated Hope London 9th anniversary. For many years we have tried to make the church anniversary one of the highlights of the year. It wasn’t until last year 2006, that we came up with the idea of having a gala night dinner where every year all of us will have the chance to dress up in our evening dress and tuxedo, black ties and bow ties.

Following the amazing success of last year’s anniversary, it was decided that this year we were going to have a fancy dress theme and the title of the anniversary was to be ‘Go for Gold’. The venue was a banqueting suite in a four star hotel – London Marriot Hotel Kensington - in one of London most posh area in the city centre.

People started coming at 18:00 hrs into the reception area. There to welcome them were our beautiful receptionists all wearing fancy masks and our beautiful ushers were also present to show them around. In the reception area the atmosphere was full of joy, smile and laughter. Our church members and guests were having some drink and talking to one another, laughing and complimenting each others dress and fancy dress. Some people turn up in their fancy dresses and others just turned up in their normal formal evening wear. We had the honour to have the pirates, the masquerades, a cowgirl, a princess amongst others and we also had a special visit from Julius Caesar and Santa.

An hour later, our 108 guests were invited to the banqueting suite where dinner would be served. It was a medium size but cosy room with 12 tables inside to accommodate 120 people. There was a stage where the worship team would later lead us through worship and in front of the stage was a small dancing floor.

The evening kicked off with the hosts – Jo and Henry – coming on the stage to welcome us and they started the night with a game just to get everyone ready for the superb evening, packed with programmes, that was yet to come. The ice breaking game was followed with worship with Eldos leading the team. We indeed wanted God to be with us and we wanted to praise Him. After all we were there celebrating because of Him.

We had our first course right after worship. All around the room you could see a diversity of people from all other the world, including Europe, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong and other Asia Pacific countries and Mauritius.

There was a break in between each of our 3 course dinner where Jo and Henry would come on stage to entertain us and introduce the performances. At every single entrance they surprised us with a different costume and people were really excited and clapping their hands and laughing and cheering for them. At one point they came on stage dressed as Cleopatra and Pharaoh and at another they were wearing Indian costumes and dancing à la Bollywood. At every break, we had some performances and testimonies including a testimony given by Pastor PK himself and amongst the performances, there were singing and video presentation, demonstrating the ‘Go for Gold’ theme, filmed and edited by our multimedia team.

At around 20:00 hrs, after most of the programmes was over and after dinner, the church leaders were invited on stage to cut the anniversary cake and to take a group picture. Then was the moment most people were waiting for; the raffles draw. The guests were all so excited and hoping to win something. Eventually we couldn’t all be winners but 7 went home with a prize each. There were also 3 other prizes for best male costume, female costume and group costumes which was won by our students group dress as pirates.

The night ended with almost everybody on the dancing floor. Others just wanted to go around taking pictures and capturing the moment with brothers and sisters and friends. After all it’s not everyday that we get to wear fancy dresses.

Our 9th anniversary was a success. Our church members all played a part and contributed in the organisation of this event which has now become one of our main highlights of our church calendar. We will do our best to make every anniversary an even bigger success than the previous one and with God it is possible.

Reported by Jeffray (Editor and Photographer of HCL)