TACOMA – Hundreds of Vietnamese Catholics from the U.S. and beyond are traveling to Tacoma in July for Vietnamese Youth Convention 5, three days to celebrate and explore their faith and culture.

“It’s about coming together as Vietnamese Catholics and having that sense of community,” said Daniel Luu, a 21-year-old from Federal Way who attended the last two conventions. Now Luu is among more than 150 volunteers working on the local event.

The July 3-5 convention, themed “In Christ Alone,” is a major undertaking for the host, Vietnamese Martyrs Parish in Tukwila. This is the first time the convention (started in 2003 and held every three years) is occurring outside California, said Eric Tran of Mercer Island, who is co-chairing the event.

So far, the parish community has raised $93,000 to subsidize registration costs, Tran said, and other Vietnamese Catholic communities in the archdiocese are helping with the event.

Two years ago, when the organizing committee in California invited the Tukwila parish to host the convention, “we accepted with joy and hope,” said Father Thanh Dao, pastor of Vietnamese Martyrs and chaplain for the convention. The event, he said, is “a response to the invitation to evangelize in our world, particularly in the Northwest. We start with evangelizing our youths, awaking in them the joy of learning and living our faith,” he said.

VYC5, as it’s known, is targeted to those ages 16 to 40. But the over-40 crowd is welcome to attend and many parents sign up, said Tran, who is 42 and attended two of the earlier conventions. Of the more than 1,500 people registered for VYC5 so far, about 45 percent are 21 and older.

The convention will be held at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, which is able to accommodate the more than 2,000 attendees expected, including dormitory lodging for 1,200, Tran said. Attendees are coming from all over the U.S. (about a third are from the Seattle Archdiocese) as well as Canada, England, Norway and even Vietnam.

The opening day of the convention will feature a keynote by Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, who will also celebrate Mass that afternoon. VYC5 will feature well-known Vietnamese speakers, entertainment, worship opportunities and 40 workshops on topics like relationship issues and serving the poor. Parents can even attend sessions to help them understand the issues facing their children in American society today.

“Many of my friends have a struggle between their Vietnamese and Catholic identities,” Luu said. At home, they’re Vietnamese; at school, they’re American; and on top of that they are Catholic. “They’re kind of torn between the three,” he explained.

At the convention, Vietnamese young people will realize there are thousands of others around the country and the world experiencing the same thing. “You know that you’re not alone in this journey,” Luu said.

As a young man, Tran said, he went through a period where he wasn’t as connected to his faith and culture, but attending the youth convention left him with excitement for both. “It made me really proud to reconnect with my faith and my culture and who I am,” he said. When Tran returned home, he became more involved in the Vietnamese Martyrs community.

Father Dao has such aspirations for his young parishioners attending the convention.

He hopes they will be “inflamed with zeal for the faith” and “develop their leadership skills and the spirit of stewardship and collaboration for the building of the parish’s future,” Father Dao said. “They are the future of the parish.”