Celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of a church plant in Kowloon coincided with the ground-breaking ceremony for its first permanent building. The Church of Shalom in Shamshuipo, Kowloon, has been meeting in the hall of St Andrew’s Primary School for the past 10 years; but now a permanent chapel is being built.

The Bishop of Western Kowloon, Andrew Chan, presided at a celebrated eucharist for the Church in the school hall and delivered a homily in which he said that over the past decade, the Church of Shalom had witnessed that God rewarded all attempts to fulfil His mission, no matter how small, with abundant blessings. He said that this was the meaning behind the biblical story of the feeding of the five thousand.

After the service, the bishops, clergy, and parishioners headed to the sheltered playground to witness the ground-breaking ceremony as construction started on its new permanent place of worship.

The Primate of Hong Kong, Archbishop Paul Kwong, oversaw the ceremony, and prayed for the safety of the construction workers “and for blessings upon the parishioners to put the new building into good use so that they might witness Christ faithfully,” the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (the Anglican Church in Hong Kong), said on its website.