by Kathy Cranston, MUPS

I’m in the midst of Culture Shock. I’m lovin’ that Texas BBQ brisket! I can pepper my sentences with “y’all” and “fixin’ to.” And I quite like teenagers sayin’ “Yes, ma’am” and checkers callin’ me “sweetheart.”

But after 10 months living in Plano (where Mission to Unreached People’s new headquarters is) it is still a rough go when it comes to feeling like this is home. It took my visit back to Seattle at Thanksgiving to help me put a name to what was happening with me.

It hit me on a Sunday at Bethany when I found my eyes welling up with tears because it was sooo good to be in the midst of worship that really felt like worship to me. I didn’t realize just how thirsty I had been! It hit me with friends, as we were able to embrace and pick up where we left off. It hit me spending time with my family—especially my mom (73), realizing I didn’t know when I’d get to move back to Seattle—if ever.

Hard to ponder. Yup. Culture Shock. Finally a name to put on all the emotions swirling inside of me those last few months. It made sense.

We teach all about this to our appointees…when everything seems “wrong” in your adopted home, when you want everything to be like it was back home….and it will never feel right. Almost everyone gets it in varying degrees and duration when they go overseas, I just didn’t expect to get it here, in the good ol’ USA!!

We also teach our appointees to “survive and thrive” through the inevitable “end of the honeymoon” period… Part of that is to remember the “vision”— why you came in the first place.
Maybe it was time for me to remind myself of the vision that brought me here.

So I’ve been re-reading newsletters and emails from folks in the field….those who have embraced MUP’s new vision – a vision of new believers producing believers, who then produce still more believers. Of small house churches producing more house churches, which produce still more house churches…till the Good News has swept through entire people groups. Church Planting Movements (or CPM).

I remind myself that this vision is not fantasy. This has been happening among people groups all over the world long before MUP embraced this exciting paradigm….in Africa, in India, in South America.

One of our folks recently wrote of the beginning of a movement happening in a nearby province….50+ recent new believers starting home fellowships, and immediately going out and sharing the good news with others, who are believing and starting more home fellowships and telling others, and so on!

When MUP decided that we were going to focus exclusively on doing whatever we could to foster these Church Planting Movements among unreached people groups, I wanted to be a part of it. It ignited such a spark in me that even my heartbroken Mom could see it, and knew it was God’s leading even if it meant moving far away.

Now, I hear in my head strains of Keith Green’s song, “So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt.” Yup, that’s me. There are times I’d love to be “back in my own back yard.” But instead, I cling to that vision.