They brought their own traditions and culture, but the interesting thing about it is that they all wanted to be Americans and quickly assimilated into yet another culture of Americans. Today we are being told that they should be allowed to retain their own sub-culture. There are a lot of people from various parts of the world, but they seem to hold on stronger to their own cultures than US-Americans have. I grew up in a University town in the midwest, and so I was easily accustomed to seeing, talking with and living side by side with many nationalities. There, it would be easier to have a cross cultural group than say, in the rural Deep South.
Force is a strong world.
I'm not so much saying we encourage it or discourage it as that most missions agencies have recognized that their assumptions and methods in church planting will determine whether a congregation starts out as a mixed or honogeneous on. Using geographiy, instead of social factors, as a guide to church planting create mixed congregations. And especially in a non-Christian culture, new believers already have so much to deal with that the added stress of coping with culture conflict is not needed. Usually there are values problems that are not necessarily moral. For example, the Bible tells us to be modest, but it doesn't tell us in much detail what modest is .