By Ivy Chai
BATU KAWA — St Mark’s Church will remember Saturday, 9 March 2024 as the day of the RM20 million ‘scratch’ of the Church grounds, to launch the extension of St Mark’s Church Project, Phase 1, by Kuching Archbishop Simon Poh and Deputy Premier and Minister for Public Health, Housing and Local Government, Sarawak, Datuk Amar Dr Sim Kui Hian.
The present Church building in Batu Kawa was officially declared open in 1999 and currently serves a fast-growing Catholic community in Kuching. It was under the pastoral care of St Joseph’s Cathedral until 2021 when it was transferred to Sacred Heart Parish, Kota Sentosa. It continues to enjoy pastoral support from the Cathedral and other parishes.
According to St Mark’s rector Fr Felix Au, over 2,000 Catholics attend Mass at St Mark’s Church every weekend. This has necessitated the need to expand its facilities, including for Sunday School so it can be a “place of community building, a place of faith formation” and hence “contribute to the better future of Sarawak.”
St Mark’s Church Parish
Kuching Archbishop Simon Poh had told Fr Felix it was time to “take steps to position St Mark to become a parish in its own right”. To realise this, the full completion of the project extension of St Mark will incur a total cost of RM20 million.
The development of the parish is divided into four phases: Phase 1 consists of the construction of the parish office and rectory. Phase 2 will cover the construction of a 4 1/2 storey classroom block for meetings and Sunday School. Phase 3 will be the construction of a multi-purpose activity hall, while the final Phase 4 will be the extension of the existing Church for worship.
To date, St Mark has accumulated funds that amount to one-third of the total cost of the whole parish extension project, raised through fundraising projects organised by the Church committee.
Sarawak Nation Building
Both YB Datuk Amar Dr Sim and Archbishop Simon Poh touched on the support given to places of worship as part of nation building. Datuk Amar Dr Sim said, “The government will give to the community and not individual” and “UNIFOR (Unit for Other Religions) will continue to support churches, temples, etc as part of Sarawak nation building.”
The Church is “also for community building to bring about blessing, goodness, kindness; the mercy, the good works that we do will also be brought into the society and as such, the Church is always part of nation building,” Archbishop Simon said.
Rite of Blessing and Ceremonial earth breaking
The blessing and ceremonial earth breaking of the Church extension for Phase 1 on 9 March 2024, was for the parish office, priests and caretaker’s quarters, utility rooms and new toilet. Also included was the foundation for Phase 2 (4 1/2 storey Sunday School Block). The cost of building Phase 1, the belfry (including the imported bells) and the foundation of Phase 2, is RM6.3 million.
St Mark’s Church is seeking for UNIFOR support to complete Phase 1 and the belfry, and to progress to Phase 2.
Present at the ceremony were local priests and religious, St Mark’s community and Elder Ambrose Linang, who represented the Association of Churches (ACS) and UNIFOR.
