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WHEN Trinity Western University presents its ‘Christmas at the Chan Centre’ this month, echoes will be heard halfway around the world. That’s because conductor Wes Janzen also conducts the Kiev Symphony Orchestra and
Chorus (KSOC).
The TWU presentation of December 2008 will be featured in January in Ukraine,
with Janzen conducting. It will be exactly the same Christmas music, but in
Ukrainian.
The 2009 Chan Centre concert includes symphonic carol arrangements, Christmas carol sing-a-longs and Bach Christmas
highlights. Vocals will be provided by the TWU choirs; the Langley Fine Arts
School Senior Choir; and the Pacific Mennonite Children's Choir. The event is
scheduled December 6, 2:30 pm, at the Chan Centre for Performing Arts, at UBC.
The KSOC was founded in 1993 when American conductor Roger McMurrin was asked to
present Handel’s Messiah in Ukraine.
Under Soviet communist rule, sacred classical music had been forbidden in the
country. The words of Messiah had such a profound effect on the musicians and singers McMurrin hired for the
concert that many of them became Christians.
When the converted musicians asked for Bibles and began to read them, they
discovered Christ has a special concern for the poor. When they asked who were
the very poorest in their area, they realized it was the many widows who had
lost their husbands in World War II and Stalin’s purges.
When the musicians began approaching them to offer help, these women slammed
doors in their faces. But they persisted, and soon hundreds of widows had come
to Christ.
Janzen first went to Ukraine as a guest conductor in 2006. He was so impressed
that he has been back several times. In 2009, he took an unpaid six month leave
of absence from TWU; his whole family went.
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While Wes worked with music, his wife Kim taught Bible studies to the widows.
The Janzens plan to take a second leave of absence in the first half of 2010, in
order to spend another six months in Ukraine.
The ministry to widows completes the circle for Janzen, whose great-grandfather
and other Mennonite ancestors were killed in Stalin’s Ukraine purges. The persecution was so severe that no Mennonites remain there
now.
Janzen says Mennonites “have prayed for so many years that the doors would open” – and now they have.
Jim Coggins
December 2009
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