About Us
“Mu” and “Kappa” are the Greek letters for “M” and “K”
Our Story
MuKappa was founded in 1986, “by MKs – for MKs,” to be a platform on college campuses to help students transition well from living in a cross-cultural context to living in North America.
We retain the name “MuKappa” to honor the history of the organization, but we recognize the complexity and diversity on campuses today. Throughout our website we use third culture kid [TCK], but we know and understand that our Chapters serve students like you with unique intercultural traditions.
MuKappa: Where you belong
Today, MuKappa is for any student with cross-cultural experience, and our Chapters serve many of these groups:
Missionary Kid (MK)
A person whose parents have been or are currently involved in Christian ministry, usually in a cross-cultural setting. An MK is a subset of a TCK.
Third Culture Kid (TCK)
A traditional third culture kid (TCK) is a person who spends a significant part of his or her first eighteen years of life accompanying parent(s) into a country or countries that are different from at least one parent’s passport country(ies) due to a parent’s choice of work or advance training.
(Definition from pg. 27 of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, Third Edition by David C.Pollock, Ruth E. Van Reken, Michael V. Pollock)
Cross Cultural Kid (CCK)
A cross-cultural kid is a person who is living/has lived in — or meaningfully interacted with — two or more cultural environments for a significant period of time during the first eighteen years of life.
Internationally Inclined Person (IIP)
A person who has not necessarily lived in a cross-cultural setting during the first eighteen years of life but is genuinely interested in international and cross-cultural things.
International Student
A student who chooses to undertake all or part of their tertiary education in a country other than their own and move to that country for the purpose of studying.
(Wikipedia)
MuKappa is run by students, and it’s a key factor in its success. The group operates under the principle that TCKs relate best to other TCKs. There are few who understand a TCK better than another TCK.
MuKappa’s main goals are to help TCKs face adjustments to college and to deal with the social, emotional, and spiritual needs during this major transition of life.
In addition to planning events to build community, MuKappa members help each other with practical needs due to living in a different cultural environment.
Freshman year can be especially difficult. It is sometimes hard for a TCK to even carry on a friendly conversation with other students whose lives did not include much of an international flavor.
MuKappa aims to provide an atmosphere where a TCK will be accepted as he or she is. Sometimes just having a circle of friends to talk to can give a TCK the sounding board needed to iron out wrinkles that come along the way.
On-mission for the future
Many MuKappa Chapters include international students and students with an interest in missions or international living. MuKappa is a welcome presence on college campuses that have a vision for the world. How better to see the world than through the eyes of people who have lived in a multitude of cultures?
Starting a MuKappa Chapter on your campus
If you have a group of TCKs on your campus and would like to organize formally for both fellowship and campus impact, we are here to help you find out more on how to Become a Chapter.
MuKappa is a ministry of Cru
Cru is a caring community passionate about connecting people to Jesus Christ. With Cru, you’ll have local and global opportunities to learn, connect, and go.
Core Values
Many Christian and secular colleges across North America have clusters of such students. Though this invisible group exists on lots of campuses, not many schools have organized fellowship groups to address their specific needs.
MuKappa has been organizing collegiate Chapters since 1985, because serving these students is at the core of our calling and ministry.
Cultural
MuKappa International recognizes the challenge of transitioning between cultures and aims to assist in cultural awareness and adjustment skills.
Practical
MuKappa International seeks to provide a support structure to meet practical needs while TCKs adapt to the unfamiliar.
Relational
MuKappa International is committed to encouraging a relational community to build connections within the group and to the greater community outside of MuKappa.
Spiritual
MuKappa International is committed to encouraging TCKs in their spiritual faith journey and also recommends involvement in a local church.
Potential
MuKappa International celebrates the great potential TCKs have to impact the world because of their background and experiences and encourages TCKs to use these gifts in their areas of influence.
Partnership Ethos
By MKs For MKS
The embryo stage of MuKappa was spawned at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. A group of missionary kids [MKs] got together and found out that they had some unique needs related to their experience of growing up overseas. Because they had ties with a foreign culture, the school expected them to integrate into the international student organization.
Sure, they shared with those students the experience of having been raised in another culture than North American culture. And, like them, they were a long way from family, friends, and the familiar. But some of the MKs didn’t feel at home in the international club. The MKs desired not to be distinctively foreign, but to integrate into overall student life.
The MKs had a different transition to college; different even from their North American classmates. They wanted to have a part in helping other MKs adjust to college life, and to living in the United States in general. They realized that few understood that transitional time in an MK’s life better than another MK.
So the MKs at Taylor brainstormed the idea of starting their own organization on campus.
With the understanding support of faculty member Dale Sloat and his wife Bonnie (former missionaries to Brazil), Nate Peterson and four other MKs established an organization called MuKappa — taken from the Greek letters for “M” and “K.” Nate became the first president of MuKappa. A constitution was written, officers were elected, and a program for the coming year was outlined.
One of their first projects was to go to the Admissions Office of the school and secure the names of all the MKs who had applied for enrollment. They wrote a letter to each one, stating that if they came to Taylor, they would find a group of MKs already there who were committed to helping them through those transitional years.
The Taylor students did not have the capability to expand the organization beyond its campus, so Jim and Ruth Lauer visited the Taylor campus and met with the MuKappa members, officers, and sponsors. The Lauers were working with Wycliffe Bible Translators to help that organization’s MKs adjust to college.
The group explored the potential dynamics of a nationwide network of MuKappa Chapters. After much prayer and further meetings, it was decided that Jim and Ruth Lauer would take the program beyond Taylor University.
They used the 1987 Urbana Missions Conference as a networking springboard to begin this ministry and MuKappa International was born. As directors of MuKappa, the Lauers facilitated the ministry to college-age MKs in transition through local campus Chapters.
In 1990, the Lauers and MuKappa moved under the umbrella of Barnabas International, a nondenominational agency committed to encouraging those in missions. Ten years later, in May 2000, the Lauers turned over the leadership of MuKappa to Perry Bradford who became the new Director.
Perry began his ministry to MKs back in 1980 as an MK teacher in Papua New Guinea. Perry and his wife Sandi joined MuKappa alongside the Lauers starting in 1994, when they returned from 10 years overseas and continued in MuKappa after the Lauers left Barnabas.
When Perry put out a plea for the need for MuKappa representatives, Judy Keith joined the team in 2004.
In 2012, Perry turned over the leadership of MuKappa to Donna Messenger. Donna came to Barnabas in 2008 from fifteen years with another mission agency (serving in Ukraine for much of that time), and ten previous years in college administration at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Tammy Sharp came to Barnabas in 2017 after fifteen years serving MKs in another mission agency. In 2019 Donna turned over the leadership of MuKappa to Tammy but remains serving MuKappa as a Consultant.
In October 2024, Barnabas transferred the role of sponsoring organization to Cru.
The goals of MuKappa International remain much the same as they did in the early days at Taylor — offering fellowship, encouragement, and support to college students who are assimilating into American culture. MuKappa continues to provide cultural, practical, social, emotional, and spiritual direction.
Today, the name “MuKappa” is retained to honor the history of the organization, but we recognize the complexity and diversity on campuses. Throughout our website we use third culture kid [TCK], but we know and understand that our Chapters serve students with unique intercultural traditions.