Years ago, I saw my favorite actor, Tom Hanks, stranded in the departure lounge at John F.

Kennedy International Airport in New York City. But I didn’t come to him to take a picture or autograph, because this was not in the real world. I watched him in the movie The Terminal, where he played Victor Navorski, an Eastern European man stuck in an airport terminal.

In the movie, Victor is denied entry to the United States and at the same time is unable to return to his native country. This is because when he was on a flight to the U.S. there was a military coup in his country. The U.S. government didn’t acknowledge the new regime, so he was considered stateless.

The movie is partially based on the true story of a man named Mehran Karimi Nasseri. Also known as Sir Alfred Mehran, Nasseri was an Iranian refugee who lived for 18 years in the departure lounge of Terminal 1 in Charles De Gaulle Airport near Paris.

Nasseri’s story didn’t have a happy ending like The Terminal movie. He remained in exile and stateless. Nasseri was a refugee from Iran. After wandering in Europe, he chose the United Kingdom as the country where he wanted to live. But on his way to England, he lost his travel documents. The British denied his entry and sent him back to France. With no paperwork and no citizenship, the French had no choice. They couldn’t admit him into their country nor let him travel anywhere else. Nasseri’s life was ruined by the absurdities of the state’s bureaucracy.

A couldn’t imagine a life like Nasseri’s — or the lives of millions of stateless people. At least I have a country where I can demand my rights as a citizen. I have legal status here in the United States. All my documents are in order. My English is OK, and I can even hide my accent.

Plus, I’m an ordained minister in a denomination with many congregations older than the nation itself. What a privilege.

But, regardless of privilege, nationality and status, we are all in this waiting room we call Earth, setting up camp in the departure lounge.

One thing is for sure: We are not meant to stay. We are just transiting. Next time you have a layover in an airport, meditate on this while you wait.

Maybe Nasseri picked up this wisdom when he waited 18 years — which might explain why he remained in the airport for five years after his immigration case was approved. After 13 years of waiting in the airport, in 1999 he finally got the international travel card that allowed him to travel anywhere in the world. He also got his French residency, which meant he could leave the airport and stay in France. But none of those things seemed to matter anymore for him.

As Christians, we are familiar with the story of exile, exodus, sojourn and diaspora. We are familiar with it not only because it is written in the Bible but because we travel. We see the world out there, the world where our own culture is insignificant.

I don’t think it’s possible to really understand the Bible without leaving one’s country and culture behind, at least for a while.

I also think that if you never have had a problem with your immigration status, your capacity as a sojourner and traveler needs to be stretched even more. I’m not saying you need to break the law to have difficulties. But if you try to live in another country for a year or two or apply for a job in another country, you will understand my point.

We are not meant to be settlers forever. We are meant to go out and spread the gospel to the ends of the Earth. We are meant to be missionaries. Life is too short to never leave the country where we were born.

How will we welcome the more than 30,000 Afghan refugees coming to the U.S. now? How many missionaries do we send overseas?

Our church should be like a departure lounge where people are ready to be sent as missionaries, not settled as bench warmers.