Esperanza en Chicago - Radical Hope in and through Chicago's Migrant Population
Lindsay Mahler, Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine, Maywood IL
Stanley Hauerwas said that there is nothing more hopeful than the birth of a child. This radical act of hope – bringing a baby into a broken world and trusting that the Lord will provide – has been encapsulated beautifully on Chicago’s West Side throughout this past year.
Since September 2022, the city of Chicago has welcomed over 50,000 migrants arriving from the southern border. In response to this influx of migrants, Lawndale Christian Health Center (LCHC) began its Casa Esperanza program, an initiative to provide free prenatal care to pregnant migrant women throughout Chicago. For this initiative, LCHC transformed their preexisting homeless shelter, Hope House, into a temporary, first-stop migrant shelter for pregnant women and their families as they arrived in Chicago. From here, these women became registered as LCHC patients to ensure they received sufficient prenatal care. Care managers oversaw the follow-up appointments of these women up until birth and into the post-partum period. Through the Casa Esperanza program, hundreds of women have received free prenatal care, and over 200 healthy babies have been born.
This presentation considers LCHC’s initiative as a countercultural act of Christian hope. I explore how this current situation puts Christian physicians in a unique position to live contrary to our current cultural moment by extending kindness and radical care to those who have been rejected by many who claim to be a part of the Church. Drawing upon scriptural warrants to love the outcast and neighbor as found in Leviticus 19:34 and Mark 12:31, we see that Christian physicians not only have the privilege of caring for these sojourners, but also the Christian obligation to welcome them with open arms. This provision of care is of mutual benefit – physicians provide hope to these patients, while also receiving these mothers, babies, and their families as epiphanies – unexpected beacons of hope and testaments to the resilience of the human spirit.
Since September 2022, the city of Chicago has welcomed over 50,000 migrants arriving from the southern border. In response to this influx of migrants, Lawndale Christian Health Center (LCHC) began its Casa Esperanza program, an initiative to provide free prenatal care to pregnant migrant women throughout Chicago. For this initiative, LCHC transformed their preexisting homeless shelter, Hope House, into a temporary, first-stop migrant shelter for pregnant women and their families as they arrived in Chicago. From here, these women became registered as LCHC patients to ensure they received sufficient prenatal care. Care managers oversaw the follow-up appointments of these women up until birth and into the post-partum period. Through the Casa Esperanza program, hundreds of women have received free prenatal care, and over 200 healthy babies have been born.
This presentation considers LCHC’s initiative as a countercultural act of Christian hope. I explore how this current situation puts Christian physicians in a unique position to live contrary to our current cultural moment by extending kindness and radical care to those who have been rejected by many who claim to be a part of the Church. Drawing upon scriptural warrants to love the outcast and neighbor as found in Leviticus 19:34 and Mark 12:31, we see that Christian physicians not only have the privilege of caring for these sojourners, but also the Christian obligation to welcome them with open arms. This provision of care is of mutual benefit – physicians provide hope to these patients, while also receiving these mothers, babies, and their families as epiphanies – unexpected beacons of hope and testaments to the resilience of the human spirit.