Dear friend,
There was a time in my life that I imagined God would call me across an ocean. I would become a missionary in sub-Saharan Africa, be imbedded as an investigative journalist in the Middle East, or build community with the Mayan Indians in South America.
The tug on my heart grew stronger as a teenager, after hearing a woman speak about sharing God’s love in many different parts of the globe. I was mesmerized in ways that I did not understand; but I began to pray her prayer.
God use me. Take my simple little life and let me go into places where no one else wants to go. I want to be your love, Lord, wherever people cannot see it and in whatever way you would have me be it.
In my version of that prayer, I was praying for so many things; but it didn’t have anything to do with Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Years later, as I explored the many places my calling could take root, the groans from the streets of my home community of Fredericksburg stopped me dead in my tracks. As Mother Teresa would say to all the many people who sought an opportunity to come work with her in India: “Calcuttas are everywhere, child. Go find yours.”
Across the world, people live on two dollars a day. Here in the Fredericksburg region, 30,000 people live on less than $14,000 a year; and 1 in every 5 people spend more than 50% of their income on housing.
Across the world, illness runs rampant and treatment is inaccessible. Here in Fredericksburg, 78% of people who live on our streets have a disability. Many have two or more.
Across the world, climate change is affecting food sources; and 673 million people are hungry. Among them, one in every 10 people face food insecurity in the region we call home.
How easy it is to be captivated by the world’s needs, that we miss the opportunity to build the kingdom here at home. We dismiss the ways God is at work in our own communities. And we resist God’s call to jump into the messiness that is right here in front of us.
Lazarus is at our gate.
Zacchaeus, the tax collector, is listening when he thinks nobody is noticing. He, too, can be transformed when the story hits home.
The prodigal son may be lost, but his father awaits his homecoming.
And there’s an expectant mother out there who has been displaced; and the room in the inn she is looking for might very well belong to you.
These are the images of a God who desperately wants to dwell with humanity. And if we are to welcome God to our neighborhood, a good place to begin is right where we are.
That is what our downtown churches set out to do through Micah Ministries 20 years ago.
Across the country, it costs $35,000 a year in public safety, hospital costs and public services to keep one person living outside. Close to home, we care for people better and more cost effectively by moving people indoors and wrapping them with support. The approach has reduced chronic homelessness in our Fredericksburg region by 58% since 2010.
Across the country, loneliness is the new epidemic in all socio-economic subgroups. Close to home, we know homelessness stems from a catastrophic loss of relationship. So, we deeply value the ways that volunteers come alongside and build community with our neighbors.
Across the country, social safety nets are crumbling as the government questions its involvement in food, housing and health care. Close to home, our downtown churches have built a continuum of compassion through innovative interventions like:
- We have our neighbors over for dinner in our church fellowship halls 365 days of the year.
- Micah’s eight-bed respite house is now one of only 32 facilities in the country with national certification from the Health Care for the Homeless Council.
- Income development doesn’t stop at public benefits. We nurture people’s gifts and move them into an economy of expanded purpose and income.
- In two years of operating temporary accommodations at Hesed House, we’ve sustained a 73% exit rate to permanent housing.
- We care for 170 people a year in housing; and now we are building a supportive neighborhood (www.jeremiahcommunity.org), which will catapult the region toward a community where no one has to sleep outside.
In two decades, your love of hometown neighbors has evolved the Micah community from helping people survive on the street to caring for all parts of human flourishing.
One tangible way that you can help with the needs close to home right now is by giving to support our neighbors moving into housing. Just $128 will purchase a brand new mattress for one of our neighbors as they move in to their homes, but any amount helps.
Neighbors who have been living in tents (and other places not meant for human habitation) for years often re-enter housing with a lot of trauma and very few belongings. Having a new mattress to sleep on, and a few new things that they like, is crucial to their healing process and long-term stability. Support us with your contribution by clicking on the donate link below. Excess funds raised above the current need for mattress purchases will be directed toward other housing stabilization costs.
Please consider how your generosity this season can continue keeping care close to home—rooted in compassion, grounded in Fredericksburg, packed with belonging: one relationship at a time.
Yours for the kingdom in Fredericksburg, as it is in heaven,
Meghann Cotter
Executive Servant-Leader
Micah Ecumenical Ministries