The Expat Christian

More than 200 million expatriates are working on the planet away from the homeland. Bring these people together politically, and you’d have the world's fifth largest nation.

At a Glance

According to a United Nations report, more than 200 million expatriates are working in the world -- living somewhere other than their native land. That's a huge number of people. If expats had their own country, they'd be the fifth largest country on the planet. Why do we mention this? Because the epistle text for today is a sort of Expat Hall of Fame.


Said one expat: "I live away from home. The language is different. The customs are different. The food is gross. The people are loud, rude and they spit a lot. But for now it's home."

He was not talking about New York or Miami. But he does describe some of the realities of being an expat.

We've all been away from home on a temporary basis. We fly off to the Caribbean for a nice vacation and a few weeks of island life. In college, we may do a semester of study abroad in London, or in high school take part in a short-term mission trip to the garbage dumps of Nicaragua and the poorest of the poor who call them home. But in every...