Individual Christian volunteers in India have banded together to create the Love Your Neighbor Network which has helped thousands during the pandemic. 

According to Christianity Today, in May 2020, during the world’s largest nationwide lockdown, Rahul George, an entrepreneur in Bengaluru and founder of the network, was stirred to do something when he saw visuals on local media of daily-wage migrant labourers walking back to their villages without any means of sustenance and support.

One main source of communicating in India is for people to connect with What's App, a communications application on smartphones. George created a group on the app and it grew very quickly with the purpose of helping those in need, whether financially, socially, spiritually, or medically. 

Christian doctors, lawyers, IT professionals and even people within the government of India joined in the group known as Love Your Neighbor Network. Then churches and Christian NGOs were invited but the initial response from this group was less than expected. 

The network that started in 2020 grew by 2021 to three city groups and eight state groups, with an average of 100 volunteers in each.

"People became more sensitive to the needs of migrants," says Saraswathi Padmanabhan, leader of an organization that serves such laborers in Bengaluru. "God has called us to work with migrant communities, so it was heartwarming to see people [recognize] the needs and challenges [of migrants] and come forward to help."

The groups simply attended to the needs of the community they were serving, whether that means food distribution, medical attention or supplies, or simply a cup of water.

"What we were trying to do was to be the church in our own small ways," says Anita Kanaiya, head of a Bengaluru nonprofit. "The church on the ground, doing what was needed to meet a need."

While the Love Your Neighbor Network isn't sure of the exact numbers of people they helped during this past year, in a virtual conference they had recently, they suspect tens of thousands in Chennai alone.

India's second wave of the pandemic was severe and in total 30.6 million people tested positive for COVID-19 and over 400,000 people have died from it in the country. 

Some parts of the Network focused on prayer and counselling, while others brought meals or groceries to COVID-19 patients isolating at home.

"Many of us don’t come from a medical background. Many of us have no experience with doing something like this," says the leader of the organization. "But God taught us and we learned things on the job."

Tina Draper, a COVID-19 survivor in Chennai, said the Love Your Neighbor Network helped her secure a hospital bed, gave her medical advice for home treatment once she was discharged, got her an oxygen cylinder when her health weakened, provided counselling and prayer through her journey with the virus, and took care of her medical expenses.

The organization also partnered with Mercy Mission, a Muslim-led interfaith group. 

"In the first wave, very few churches came forward," says George. "We talk so much about faith and the power of prayer, but it was people of other faiths who came out [into the community] and showed their faith by helping others. We look down on people of other faiths, especially Muslims, but here in India, God showed that they were the Good Samaritans when the pious and religious looked the other way."

Eventually, George shares that local churches did step up and start helping out. However, the majority of people helping those in need were individuals, which he calls 'the church.'

"I grew up thinking that the Indian Christian community can’t do much: We’re so small, we’re so few, we can’t really make a difference," says Dominica, the core leader in Delhi who runs Project Kalpana, an initiative that helps migrant workers. "But my experience with the network has shown me that there is so much potential in the Indian church if we can come together. We just need to have the courage to step out and start these things and people will come alongside us."

Elderly Christians in the country who wanted to help but didn't have the strength brought their contribution of baking cookies for volunteers and praying over those involved. 

"We have not tapped into what is possible with us. This pandemic just gave us a glimpse," says George. "If 250-odd Christians, all complete strangers to each other, could start this and make such an impact, I’m just wondering what else can be done with all of us together—the 3 percent of the [1.38 billion] population that we are in India."