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Bongani Ndlovu Showbiz Correspondent
THE work of God’s hand, is how Bulawayo choir – Worship Temple Unveiled (WTU) – described their win on Sunday at the annual Harvest House International Church (HHIC) Clash of Hub Choirs contest held at the ZITF Hall 4.

This is because the choir is barley three months old but still managed to beat a strong field to pocket $10 000 for winning the contest now in its third year.

The choir beat 11 other choirs drawn from the church’s branches in different provinces and the region.

The judges were Lindelani Mkhize of Joyous Celebration, Pastor Charles Charamba and Rachel Chigwada.

Mashonaland Hub came in second and pocketed $7 500 while 2014 winner Harvest Tabernacle Choir settled for third place and was awarded $2 500.

The 63 member WTU strong choir works under the guidance of Rufaro Nyamweda who said the win was a humbling experience for the choir that was formed on May 1.

“I’m humbled about winning because we’re a new choir so this can only be the work of God. I’m so humbled,” said Nyamweda.

“It took hard work as we had many sleepless nights preparing for the contest.”

Nyamweda said they would use the prize money to help further improve the group and record an album.

“The money doesn’t go to individuals; what we’re going to is to try to improve our group. We will get some uniforms, buy some instruments and use part of the money for recordings.

“We intend to record an album for the group and this will be before the end of the year,” said Nyamweda.

In front of thousands at the ZITF Hall 4, the competition seems to be growing each year judging by the crowd that gathered.

This year the competition was stiff as all the choirs brought their A game to the contest. So stiff was the competition that last year’s winners Hosana did not make it into the top three of the contest.

The choirs were required to sing songs in both praise and worship during the competition and judges were looking at group creativity, presentation, size and their interaction with the crowd.

In the individual accolades, Sunday Mail Leisure reporter Takudzwa Chihambakwe from Mashonaland Hub was a crowd favourite with his reggae outfit complete with dreadlocks and rightfully adjudged to be the outstanding male vocalist on the day.

WTU female lead singer Amanda Nkomo gave a powerful praise song Rapture (Bhera rorira) that got people on their feet and impressed judges who chose her the most outstanding female singer.

In the first round, the 11 groups performed two songs each, one praise song and one worship song, before the groups were cut down to six.

In the second round, the six performed a worship song each before the grand finale where the final four choirs performed a praise song.

Not many things went wrong during the contest as performances were filled with vigour mixed with beautiful melodies that touched the hearts of many. Some left the place saying they had been blessed by the singing while others were uplifted by the words that were sung.

However, the sound system was not that great as some lyrics could not be heard when performed by some groups and an improvement on this should be done next year.

The HHIC Clash of Hub Choirs was the grand finale of the annual church’s Apostolic/Prophetic Conference that ran from August 25 to August 28 under the theme Loyalty and Disloyalty. -Twitter @bonganinkunzi