Abidin presenting a souvenir to Don on behalf of the organisers. Looking on are Penampang DO Luvita Koisun (left). From right are Pastor Daniel Chin of KK Pastors Fellowship (Chinese) and Pastor Steven Choon of KK Pastors Fellowship (English).
PENAMPANG: One of the best known Christian praise and worship leaders in America, Don Moen, wowed the more than 1,000 crowd at the Sabah Cultural Center here last night.
Don, 65, was here with four other US musicians and a female singer plus a sound engineer for the one-night-only “Don Moen Live: A Concert for Mount Kinabalu” concert.
As its name suggests, the concert was to raise funds for the victims of the recent Mount Kinabalu earthquake, including the mountain guides. It was organised by the Kota Kinabalu Pastors Fellowship in conjunction with Mojo Live Sdn Bhd and KK Firm Horizon.
Guest-of Honour Datuk Abidin Madingkir, who is KK Mayor, witnessed the presentation of a RM10,000 mock cheque to Pastor Daniel Chin of I-Link Berhad, the relief arm of the KK Pastors Fellowship for channeling to the earthquake victims.
Don, who describes himself as a “Praise & Worship artiste with the sole aim of leading people into the presence of God through Praise & Worship worldwide”, and his band performed for more than two hours with both his newer and older songs. He has written more the 100 songs and produced numerous albums, with many achieving gold and platinum status.
Among the gospel songs which Don sang and were crowd favourites were God Will Make A Way and God is Good All the Time which was his closing number and which had the enthusiastic crowd on their feet. The crowd went crazy when Don also played the violin besides the electric piano.
Meanwhile, Don’s ‘best friend’, Lenny LeBlanc, also sang, alternating with Don. Among his songs which were again crowd favourites was Above All.
Don also has a Ministry – the Worship in Action (WIA) organisation based in Nashville, Tennessee. Don founded WIA in response to great needs he encountered while on worship tours around the world. Hence, most of his tours are related to calamities in the places he visited like earthquakes, flood, typhoons,etc.
Before Sabah, he had been to the Philippines and Thailand. He will next appear in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.