Local officials prevent events featuring U.S. evangelist Luis Palau.

By Jeremy Reynalds

Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

HANOI, VIETNAM (ANS) -- Authorities in Vietnam prevented much-anticipated public Easter celebrations in Hanoi planned for Friday and Saturday (April 15-16) after giving a verbal promise to organizers that the events would proceed.

According to Compass Direct News, an interchurch organizing committee had submitted a request for permission well in advance and had made elaborate preparations for the special events featuring well known evangelist Luis Palau.

Compass reported organizers said they were disappointed, but not entirely surprised, by the Communist government's action. “The authorities have clearly demonstrated to the world what we experience regularly - that their promises, whether verbal or written, cannot be trusted,” said one church leader who requested anonymity.

Asked to speculate on the reasons for the government's ultimate refusal, another key church leader told Compass, “I don't know why, but it almost seems as if the government is deliberately damaging its own reputation.

Shortly after 1 p.m. on April 15, after long negotiations, authorities gave verbal permission for the events to proceed, promising the required written permission would be issued shortly.

The government-approved venue was the Dien Kinh My Dinh Sports Complex, a state-of-the-art indoor track and field stadium in Hanoi's Tu Liem district. Compass said it reportedly holds 3,100 people. Organizers had requested a place with much larger capacity.

After receiving the verbal promise, Compass reported organizers said they went directly to the sports complex hoping to begin preparing the sound and lighting systems. They were not given access.

When no written permission was forthcoming by the scheduled start at 7 p.m., organizers said they were forced to turn away many hundreds of people arriving from the provinces by chartered buses. They urged the people to return home quietly and to pray for the event scheduled for the next evening, they said.

Very late Friday evening, Compass said, the organizing committee received written permission from the Hanoi People's Committee to hold what was to have been the second night of the event on April 16. They immediately posted the document on Vietnam's most popular Christian website www.hoithanh.com, they said.

Apparently, however, Compass reported, public security and city authorities quietly overrode the reluctant permission granted by Vietnam's religion bureaucracy. Organizers told Compass that even with the official letter from the People's Committee, several hurdles had remained.

They had still needed to secure a contract from the sports complex on Saturday morning for use of the facilities, and they had yet to request the Committee for Religious Affairs for permission for Palau to speak.

Early on Saturday, Compass said, Pastor Nguyen Huu Mac, president of the registered Evangelical Church of Vietnam (North), or ECVN(N), who had signed the request, went with colleagues from unregistered house churches to the sports complex to pursue the contract.

When they were told that Saturday was not a work day, they went to the Tu Liem district office. There they were stalled for several more hours.

Compass reported district officials eventually told them that although the sports complex was in their area of the city, it was owned and managed by another entity over which they had no control.

Finally, at 1 p.m., the manager of the sports complex arrived. Compass said he gave the organizing committee what Christian leaders described as unreasonable conditions for a contract.

For example, the instance, the manager said, they could not enter the complex to prepare until 4:30 p.m. - hardly enough time for the scheduled 7 p.m. start.

Compass reported organizers said the manager further told them that the sports complex would retain control over who and how many entered the building. He said they would not honor the tickets/invitations that had been widely distributed by the event organizers but would distribute their own and count every head.

The organizers sensed trouble, Compass said.

Faced with all these issues and without enough time to set up properly, church leaders said, they unanimously decided they could not proceed with integrity. Shortly after 4 p.m., they issued an indefinite postponement notice.

Reached by Compass late Saturday Hanoi time, a Luis Palau Association spokesman reported that the evangelist had just spent significant time encouraging the tired organizers. Palau told them that the Lord would bless them for their diligence and predicted that they would soon reap a great spiritual harvest.

In a few years, Compass reported he said, they would look on the disappointments of this weekend as insignificant, according to the spokesman.

Despite their disappointment, church leaders noted the positives. The effort to stage the events, they said, marked unprecedented cooperation among various groups, with the ECVN(N), the only registered church based in the north, applying for the permission document on behalf of all groups.

Cooperating in the organizing were northern house churches belonging to the Hanoi Christian Fellowship and southern-based house churches belonging to the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship, as well as some smaller groups.

Together, the church leaders said, they determined not to bow to government manipulation and pressure.

“Clearly someone at the top disallowed these events and then left it to clumsy underlings to create bureaucratic obstacles,” Compass reported a long-time overseas Vietnam analyst said. “Most people will see through this ruse and recognize simple lack of religious freedom.”

In Ho Chi Minh City, similar Easter celebrations were given last-minute approval and went ahead the previous weekend with considerable response to Palau's messages.

Compass said it is unknown if or how the cancellation of the events in Hanoi will affect plans for the Evangelical Church of Vietnam, both the northern and southern entities, to include Palau in their June centennial celebrations in Danang, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City.

Compass reported that permission has been long requested, but so far the government has only given general verbal approval.

For more information about Compass Direct news, go to www.compassdirect.org

Additional details on "Homeless in the City" are available at http://www.homelessinthecity.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@comcast.net.

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