Joel Julien

The All Saints An­gli­can Church in Port-of-Spain will be the venue for a Car­ni­val band launch this Fri­day night.

Yes, you read that cor­rect­ly.

Reign­ing Medi­um Band of the Year win­ners K2K Al­liance & Part­ners’ will launch its 2019 pre­sen­ta­tion Through the Stained Glass Win­dows at the church lo­cat­ed at Mar­li Street, Queen’s Park West, Port-of-Spain, at 9 pm on Fri­day.

And while some may ques­tion this re­la­tion­ship be­tween the church and Car­ni­val, Canon Richard Ja­cob, the Rec­tor of the church has called for a “re­think”.

“We be­lieve that God is the source of all that is cre­ative and good. We cel­e­brate what is good and up­lift­ing and give folks an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­think how we ex­press that God-giv­en cre­ativ­i­ty at Car­ni­val,” Ja­cob stat­ed.

He cit­ed bible scrip­ture 1 Corinthi­ans 10:31 which states: “So, whether you eat or drink, or what­ev­er you do, do every­thing for the glo­ry of God” to sup­port his point.

The All Saints An­gli­can Church is 172 years old and is one of the his­tor­i­cal lime­stone mor­tar church­es in the coun­try.

The church’s walls have sus­tained some dam­age es­pe­cial­ly with the heavy rain­falls ex­pe­ri­enced here in the re­cent past.

And restora­tion and re­fur­bish­ment re­quire spe­cialised ex­per­tise and work.

Apart from that, All Saints hous­es one of the old­est pipe or­gans in the Caribbean—Bev­ing­ton Pipe Or­gan—which was com­plete­ly re­fur­bished in the 1990’s and while it has been main­tained, it is over­due for sub­stan­tive work.

So a por­tion of the pro­ceeds from the K2K Al­liance & Part­ners’ band launch will go to­ward the restora­tion of the church.

Tick­ets for the band launch cost $175.

K2K Al­liance & Part­ners was found­ed Kathy and Karen Nor­man. The band is not known for the “biki­ni and beads” that has re­cent­ly been the cos­tume of choice for Car­ni­val.

“With re­spect to the wardrobe pieces, our em­pha­sis is on cre­at­ing time­less art­work that will re­main riv­et­ing some twen­ty, thir­ty years in the fu­ture. With re­spect to the themes our goal is to cre­ate poignant sto­ries that will still have rel­e­vance through­out the ages,” K2K stat­ed.

And this was the mantra fol­lowed for the theme Through Stained Glass Win­dows, which was orig­i­nal­ly con­cep­tu­al­ized for 2018.

The band opt­ed to in­stead present We Stand Unit­ed as a pre-cur­sor.

“Both sto­ry-lines speak to the so­cio-po­lit­i­cal eco­nom­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment, with We Stand Unit­ed call­ing for an ac­tion of uni­ty, while Through Stained Glass Win­dows fo­cus­ing on the need for prayer in times where an­ti-glob­al­iza­tion, seg­re­ga­tion and hate seems to be more ev­i­dent. The sec­tions love (Amare), faith (Fi­dem), hope (Spero), light (Lux) and joy (Gaudi­um) speak to some of the pos­i­tive cop­ing mech­a­nisms that are need­ed to bal­ance the un­set­tling dis­cord glob­al­ly,” K2K stat­ed.

The five sec­tions of Through Stained Glass Win­dows, was in­spired by the St Fran­cis of As­sisi Peace Prayer:

— Amare (Latin for love): Where there is ha­tred, let me sow love

— Fi­dem (Latin for faith): Where there is doubt, faith

— Spero (Latin for hope): Where there is de­spair, hope

— Lux (Latin for light): Where there is dark­ness, light

— Gaudi­um (Latin for joy): Where there is sad­ness, joy.

Stained Glass Win­dows, apart from be­ing the K2K Al­liance & Part­ners 2019 theme, al­so forms part of the his­to­ry of the All Saints An­gli­can Church.

The church’s stained glass cen­tre win­dow was do­nat­ed by Mr Marston and in­stalled in 1854.

It is the on­ly known ex­am­ple of Ger­man stained glass art in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Its scene de­picts a ‘mas­sive three-light win­dow with Je­sus at the cen­tre and with St Paul and St John at his side’. The win­dow was ded­i­cat­ed to a per­son on­ly known as ‘Richards’. How­ev­er the win­dow was dam­aged dur­ing the war years (prob­a­bly by school­boy pranks) and for al­most 50 years this win­dow was en­cased in a pro­tec­tive wall. It was on­ly ‘dis­cov­ered’ (and re­stored by Mike Wat­son) in 1987 when a cross was be­ing con­struct­ed on the out­side wall, be­hind . The cross was lat­er repo­si­tioned,” in­for­ma­tion from All Saints stat­ed.

“To the left of the Ger­man made stained glass is a mod­ern stained glass win­dow do­nat­ed by Jus­tice Evan Rees in mem­o­ry of his moth­er Lau­ra Rees. It de­picts The Holy Spir­it of Peace against the back­ground of a cross. To the right there is a sec­ond mod­ern win­dow which shows a lamb, the Lamb of God, against a back­ground of ce­les­tial rays. At the top there are stars which rep­re­sent Fa­ther, Son and Holy Ghost (the Trin­i­ty) and at the bot­tom, hands raised in praise. This win­dow was ded­i­cat­ed to Holdah and Sel­wyn Skin­ner,” in­for­ma­tion from All Saints stat­ed.

Tick­ets are avail­able at the K2K’s Show­room & All Saints An­gli­can Church Of­fice.