Founded by Cynthia Robertson, MSW, who moved back to Southwest Louisiana from Washington, Texas, to support her mother. Micah 6:8 Mission initially started with a food box in the disenfranchised, at-risk neighborhood known as Portie Town in Sulphur.
After the horrific impacts of Hurricane Laura, Hurricane Delta, and Winter Storm Uri during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as the organization did disaster relief in Calcasieu Parish, she realized that ‘upstream’ justice work was badly needed to determine and change the reason these storms were getting worse, and change the long-term health of our communities.
Micah 6:8 Mission began the justice work needed, connecting with The Disaster Justice Network, a network of community organizers, researchers and academics who focus on the social, economic, political and environmental factors impacting communities in Louisiana. That relationship led to connecting to regional and national environmental organization and we began the work of educating our communities on the harm being done to our city, parish, state and the world by the actions of corporate interests focused on profits instead of protecting the workers they employ and communities they are located in.
Ms. Robertson comes from a long line of men and women who worked and still work in the fossil fuel industry, starting in the hills and hollers of West Virginia as coal mining families, to the petrochemical industry here in Louisiana. Understanding that the transition from fossil fuel to renewable resources raises anxiety in some, she leads Micah 6:8 Mission in striving to help people understand that the industry can be safer for all, but the communities they exist in must insist that those safety protections be put into place. Her father fought with other members of our communities to protect the area from hazardous waste dumping, while employed in the industry, years ago. Working in industry and protecting our communities from environmental degradation are not incompatible, and the continuation of the environmental degradation of our world, whether you think locally or globally, cannot continue.
Our goal is to make Portie Town, and the parish and region we live in, safer and more equitable. The people of our neighborhood, and the region and state in general, are poorer, less educated, less healthy, face a higher risk of crime, have a high rate of incarceration – in general a good portion of the population is disenfranchised. We monitor the air quality, educate about the risks and harms of the ever-present pollution, train community members to become advocates for the community they want, share resources, encourage community spirit .
Micah 6:8
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?
In the bible, ”justice,” like love, is an action word. Justice means to “make right”.
We are not faith based, but are faith inspired.
We like the translation that says, “love mercy”, but the meaning is more than what we usually think of as mercy. It is forgiveness, understanding, and again, is an action word – extending forgiveness, understanding and kindness.
“Walking humbly” is the part of the verse that leads us to be relationship makers and not charity givers, to let the community lead the acts of mercy, and share in them.
The descriptors of justice, mercy and humbleness led us to understand that:
- we are called to do justice in the world;
- we are called to share what we have with others;
- we are called to humbly walk with the members of our community.
We treat the symptoms of the problems of our world in many ways. In our beginning, this work involved the Blessing Box and filtered water station. Now, we are working with the community to educate about the environmental and social issues facing us, and the ways we can make changes to resolve those issues.
Living in Louisiana, we know climate change and environmental issues have had, do have, and will have such a huge impact on the people we are called to serve – the homeless, the working poor, the elderly, the disabled. And if we don’t begin to address these issues, we are spitting in the wind. If we leave out the ‘do justice’ instruction, we and our successors will continue to apply salve to the wounds again and again. We work to heal the systemic wounds of environmental, economic, social, and racial injustice in our communities.