ABSTRACT
Anti-immigrant sentiments within local populations bring difficulties not only to migrants but also to individuals and groups in transit and destination countries, who take seriously both people’s need to move but also the social responsibility for the poor and vulnerable. This chapter explores two core beliefs in Christianity, which shed light on Christian practices among vulnerable migrants that build and nurture their resilience, and how these practices, in turn, provide clues to fostering resilience among immigration advocates and humanitarian workers. The chapter commences with a discussion on how the cross and the Eucharist play a role in how vulnerable migrants build and nurture resilience, particularly in terms of how these two core beliefs relate to Christian spiritual practices of empathy and strategic option for the poor (for the cross) and community, hospitable encounters, and prayer (for the Eucharist). This is followed by reflections on how these spiritual practices might help in articulating and understanding how resilience may be fostered among immigration advocates and humanitarian workers in view of the increasing challenges they face in carrying out their work in contemporary times. The chapter proposes that, from a Christian perspective, hope underpins the practice of resilience, whether one is the migrant or the advocate/humanitarian.
