Please join us for our Micah Community All Saints’ Day. This is the evening each year that we set aside space to remember our current and formerly unhoused neighbors who have passed away over the course of the last year.
This annual tradition that used to take place around the Christmas season on the longest night of the year (Dec. 21). We now host the night of remembrance to coincide with All Saints’ Day, to honor the memory of all those we have lost in our Micah community.
In 2023, we have seen the loss of many of 23 neighbors. We gather in their memory, to memorialize those who often are left with no headstone, yet are claimed by name to God.
Please join on Thursday, November 2, on the Methodist Green. (At Fredericksburg United Methodist Church – the green space on the Princess Anne Street side.)
We will begin at 5 PM with the “Camp Vigil,” where you can visit the memorial campsites set up throughout the Green to remember those we lost.
At 6 PM, join us for our candlelight memorial service, including prayer, liturgy, and song.
Come as you are!
Did You Know?
• Homelessness takes years off a person’s life. While the average American lives to be 78, the life expectancy of a person who has been on the street averages around 50 (the life expectancy of those who lived in 1900).
• Older Americans are the fastest growing group living in shelters and on the street. Single adults over 50 make up half the US homeless population, and if nothing changes in the next 15 years, Harvard University estimates that another 2.4 million seniors will have no access to affordable housing.
• Unhoused neighbors suffer the same illnesses experienced by people with homes, but at rates three to six times higher. Many de from issues that could be treated or prevented.
Every year some members of the Micah community go unclaimed after death. Graciously a local funeral home allows us to claim them and arrange cremation and burial. Help us lay our friends to rest by contributing to our burial fund.
By forming Micah Ecumenical Ministries, the downtown churches in Fredericksburg have coalesced as one body, working meaningfully together to cultivate community and care for unhoused neighbors. In our acknowledgement that the church can do more together than it could ever do apart, we often pair our love of neighbor with love for God through shared worship expressions. Despite denominational differences, the downtown churches have often held ecumenical Lenten worship series, Thanksgiving and Advent worship, as well as holding space around key community and world events. The friendship among the clergy and congregations of the nine pillar churches in Fredericksburg has been key to the movement and energy behind the Micah community.
Fredericksburg’s downtown churches began their journey toward the vision for Micah Ecumenical Ministries almost 18 years ago. We’ve now been at this as many years as there are miles to the treacherous Jericho Road of the Good Samaritan story. Along the way, encounters with our neighbors’ suffering have taught us much about the home God envisions for humanity, and how we are called to take part.