Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly

We are celebrating almost ten years of our Micah program!

Some members of our team with a West Virginia homeowner whose house we worked on (2016)

This service-learning experience was born out of my own story, the mission and vision of BFJN and a desire to bring together intergenerational groups to serve, learn and grow together. We hoped to begin to cultivate compassionate ways of being, to spark that innate sense in all of us that we have something special to offer the world in need around us and to provide practical teaching and connection to help participants move forward in their journey toward doing justice and loving mercy as they walk with the Lord.

When my daughters were younger – four and eight – I was looking for a way to serve together as a family.

Growing up I was part of a church and youth group that did the traditional mission trips. These weeks were always the highlight of my summers and were catalytic experiences in my faith journey. These trips served deepen my understanding of a God of justice and love and broaden my understanding of a world to which I had limited exposure in my everyday life.

I hoped to provide a similar experience for my girls and to allow us to serve and learn as a family alongside other members of our church family. Our first trip we partnered with World Vision and travelled to West Virginia with a group of about 25 friends, ages 5-75. We did construction and clean-up work and learned about the ongoing work and partnership between World Vision and local churches. It was a great start, but after traveling again the next year, this time to Buffalo, I felt called to stay closer to home.

Some of our littlest team members from our Buffalo Experience

While it was valuable to see different places and learn and work in other cities and towns I began to want to build something that would allow us and our participants to be more fully rooted at home. We knew there were plenty of organizations doing great work in need of volunteers, so we built a local Micah Experience. We launched our first local Micah in partnership with the Salvation Army in Melrose alongside thirty participants of all ages from all over the Boston area.

Since then we have partnered with dozens of organizations serving people experiencing homelessness, food insecurity and poverty as well as survivors of trafficking. Hundreds of participants of all ages have participated, some many times, in our one-, two-and three-day Experiences. For several of our recent Micahs we focused specifically pn housing justice – which helped us dive deeper into this particular issue and build stronger connections with communities experiencing homelessness in Boston and with individuals and organizations serving them.

We have learned so much along the way from church leaders, activists, advocates, practitioners and the participants who gave of their time and brought unique perspectives and genuine curiosity. Serving and learning in community has been catalytic for so many and it has been a vital part of BFJN’s mission of calling and equipping followers of Jesus to live justly and generously.

We look forward to two more Micahs this summer and anticipate another housing justice focused Micah to our community in the not-so-distant future. Stay tuned!