Voting from Overseas

When you live overseas you become very aware of your citizenship and the privileges that are bestowed with that citizenship. As a guest in this country, we have few, if any, “rights”. We can’t open a bank account or sign a contract for phone service, Internet, etc. To do those things you have to have a “personal code number”, which is issued only to citizens or to those granted permission to live here with residency visas. We just received our one-year residency visas yesterday and can just now, after six months, operate more freely. It is clear, however, that as non-citizens we can never fully participate in this society.

When confronted with these realities on a daily basis, the privileges associated with citizenship become even more valued. We have both always been diligent to vote. Living ten time zones away in a different culture only increased our determination to vote in the US elections. We made the arrangements to have our ballots mailed to us at our overseas address. When they had still not arrived by October 20th, we contacted the Registrar of Voters office and were able to receive the ballots via email! We faxed our ballots back today. (For obvious reasons, when you fax your ballots in you have to sign a waiver to a secret ballot.) The Registrar of Voters even sent an email confirming receipt of our ballots, stating everything looked in order and that our ballots were being forwarded for counting.

We are grateful for the technology that allows us to vote from overseas. We appreciate the service received from the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters office – they were great! But most of all, we are thankful to be citizens of a free country holding open elections. We hope you exercise your privilege to vote also.

This also reminds us that we are citizens of an even greater Kingdom. We should be just as determined to exercise our privileges of that citizenship. Prayer, ministry, service and sharing the gospel are all privileges that we should exercise each day as God gives us the opportunity. As we hope that you exercise your privilege as a citizen of the USA we also hope that you will, and encourage you to, exercise your privileges as a child of God.

Seeking to serve,

Paul, Kathy & Nate