Taking Action Against Poverty

Love in Action – Taking Action Against Poverty is a 96 page hardback photographic documentary book, created and produced in Australia by Stuart Harris with words by Jim Collins. It was printed overseas and is available now. Since you’ve made it to this page on our website you should be rewarded with a peek inside before you buy.

Love in Action book cover

Let’s start with the cover. Love in Action has a dust-jacket to protect the hardcover case. The image on the front cover is of three children that we met who live in Camp 46 near the town of Bitung. They live in a refugee camp with their families. At the time this photograph was taken they had no access to clean running water and would collect the rain water that would run off their dirty roof and store it in these recycled oil drums! The children were so inquisitive of our visit to their village, and that wasn’t surprising since the village is tucked away in the foothills of a volcano. We walked through the hot sweaty jungle to get there, so I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t have seen any tourists out this far off the main road. We chose this image for the front cover because we loved the fact the children were so happy and cheerful. We found joy in their poverty!

Love in Action has a modern style to it. Andy Meier, who designed the layout for Love in Action, created some beautiful illustrations of flowers for the book that run throughout the book growing as you turn the pages, giving Love in Action a distinct theme.

This page to the right is what we call a chapter break. It features an image that is a visual reference to the topic that the chapter covers, together with the title and graphical illustration designed by Andy.

This is an example of a double page spread (DPS). You’ll find several large images taken by Stuart Harris placed across the entire width of the book creating real impact. This image speaks volumes to the cheerful nature of the people in Manado. Everyone that we met always exchanged a large welcoming smile to us. Ryan Wrigely was our retoucher for Love in Action. Ryan is a master with Photoshop, and he has subtly bought out the weathered skin tones and blemishes beautifully. Ironically, in his day job, Ryan spends a lot of time his time trying to remove wrinkles and blemishes!

So what about the title? Why, Love in Action? Love is the greatest ‘thing’ we can do or express to another human being. More than 2,000 years ago Jesus told a story about a good man who helped his neighbour when he was in great need. The story is a famous one, it is of the Good Samaritan. The good man was from Samaria and the man he helped was from a neighbouring foreign land, in fact the people of these neighbouring lands did not normally like one another, so this story would have been particularly confronting to people living in 1st Century Israel. Putting our differences to one side, Jesus said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love in Action is the outward expression of what putting love into action. Jesus goes on further and commands us to “Go and do likewise.” Love in Action is both a prompt and a practical model for putting action into these beautiful words.

Putting love into action will look different to everyone. It maybe to help a homeless person by buying them a sandwich at lunchtime, or offering shelter to a friend who is in need. It could be giving up coffee in the morning and instead giving the money to a good cause, or making dinner for your elderly neighbour who you know is sick this week with flu.

Lastly, here is an example of a story page. These are the words from Love in Action’s writer, Jim Collins. Everytime I read our book I’m transported back to Manado. Jim is a wonderfully gifted writer and a blessing to have as co-producer of this exciting project. A story page contains a quote and a page of copy. The narrative in this book helps to explain how the community partnership has worked and on one hand serves as a story and on another an instruction manual as to how one might ‘do likewise’.

Thanks to issuu.com for making this sample of Love in Action possible. Click below to browse through the first pages of the book.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this small behind the scenes glimpse into Love in Action. I hope that you will enjoy reading the book. Be sure to buy yourself a copy today.

- Stuart