Michelle MacFayden
Advocacy and Community
It’s not every day that you meet a female ground control NASA engineer who helped legend John Glenn on his last space mission — a ride on the space shuttle Discovery — in 1998. “Working mission control was fun and exciting. I watched over the computers that controlled — and landed — the shuttle,” says Eunice native, Michelle MacFayden.
While the NASA post is impressive by celestial-sized proportions, MacFayden traded in her key to mission control to ignite something more meaningful on planet Earth. Instead of analytically landing space shuttles in the abyss, gravitational pull firmly planted her boots on the ground in the heart of Acadiana. Her deductive brainpower used for protecting astronauts is now being used for a humanitarian mission fueled by her galaxy-sized heart.
“I keep hearing Matthew 25:35, ‘Welcome the stranger’.”
The mother of four, selflessly assists hundreds of desperate refugees from 60 countries who are searching for better lives in the United States. She volunteers at three statewide holding facilities, one of which is in her backyard of Evangeline Parish at the Basile Detention Center. “When people hear ‘detention center,’ they think they got caught by authorities, and that’s not the case. They want to turn themselves in so they can start the process, and the majority are not criminals,” explains MacFayden, a devoted volunteer with Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention, LA-AID.
MacFayden is among nearly two-dozen LA-AID volunteers who tackle an endless list of tasks, including advocating for voiceless migrants. “We help them connect with their families and sponsors, get necessary medical care that might be ignored, as well as visit them.” It’s not uncommon for MacFayden to welcome a refugee to stay overnight at her home. “If I were in this situation, God, I hope somebody would open the door for me to make sure I was okay.”
One could say it’s apropos that MacFayden is emphatic about helping her fellow man survive; after all, her ancestors were expatriated Acadians. She’s a direct descendent of Acadian and Cajun patriarch Louis Arceneaux (circa 1765), whom many believe was the real-life character Gabriel in Longfellow’s celebrated poem “Evangeline.” “The Acadian people were exiled. Can we not see they are in the same situation?”
In retrospect, MacFayden’s decision not to become an astronaut paid off astronomically because she found heaven on earth through helping humankind. She said, “To me it comes from God. It’s a desire I can’t explain; why I was called to do this is just a mystery.”
If you’d like to volunteer or make a donation to LA-AID, go to laaid.org.
