The Love Hanoi Festival with Franklin Graham presented us with a very special challenge; one which we had never experienced before: How were we going to demonstrate the love of God to the city? Our answer: Love in Action! Love in Action is a unique committee which recognizes the powerful witness that many of the churches have created through their actions of service for their communities. Now formed as part of the Love Hanoi Festival, the committee hopes to carry out a number of new initiatives. Thanks largely to CityPartners and the Love Hanoi Campaign, both of which had laid the path already and  developed a foundation for uniting local Non-Profit Organizations (NPO’s) and churches together to serve the city Meeting  in early April, the Love in Action Committee selected specific issues or programs to focus on and support. These are:

• Drug Rehabilitation Centers
• Human Trafficking
• Blood Drives
• Neighborhood and Park Clean-ups
• Training Churches in Service Project Development

Since agreeing on the goals, the committee has worked with the local churches to help turn these goals into reality, achieved through a combination of projects, training sessions and seminars.

Workshops & seminars

One of the key hopes of Love in Action has been to help develop awareness of the issues which have been plaguing the city and provide training on how to combat it.  Love in Action has partnered with groups to hold awareness events for the people in the city. They were the Anti-Trafficking organization ColorMe, the Christian based rehabilitation centers, and the Pro-Life organization Passion Life. To date over 600 people have attended these events and there are still several more events planned this month. 130 church leaders have attended training programs and seminars that seek to teach about the theological directive for Christians to love their city and strategies for how churches can begin their own projects.

Future vision

With the Love Hanoi Festival only a few weeks away, the Love in Action Committee is hoping to complete some of its goals and mission before the festival occurs. However, the true goal of these projects is to create a culture amongst churches to partner with one another and with their local government; a partnership that will continue long after the festival has finished.  Through the continued efforts of City Partners and Love Hanoi, we hope that dialogues, seminars, and training sessions can continue to occur and even greater works of love can manifest in the city. Lucas Jens Chatelain Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Co-chair Love in Action Committee, +841629560942