MICAH Prayer Vigils

"We’re getting killed out here in the streets and the churches are not around.”

This remark and drive-by shootings in the same block on four successive days, resulting in the death of 12-year-old Monte Fuller, launched our MICAH Prayer Vigils on October 14, 1993. We pledged to gather in prayer at the site of homicides within our MICAH boundaries (hopefully until we could gather in celebration that the killings had stopped.) We knew it would be a major commitment, but we had no way of grasping the reality! Two thousand deaths later we continue to gather on sidewalks, parking lots, and streets to pray for victims, loved ones of victims, and an end to this violence.

Death doesn’t come neatly packaged. We gather at multiple sites some weeks and occasionally get a week or two off. We’ve seen violent death touch some families more than once and have returned to the same blocks again and again. Stories from family and friends, pictures, and even obituaries give faces and personalities to names. We are no longer surprised that even those involved in hurtful activity were loving, caring people to someone. We share hugs, sympathy, support, empathy, anger, and much love. All of these strengthen our resolve to do what we can through prayer and other actions to bring this “people-killing-people” phenomenon to an end.