Since the beginning, followers of Jesus have had to walk a way that has been hard for others to categorize. An ancient letter written to a roman official named Diognetus sheds some light on what that looked like then, and it shares some encouragement with us! 

“They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land....Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each man’s lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth.” The letter to Digonetus as quoted in Gerald L. Sittser, Resilient Faith