When I tell people I'm headed to Summer School this January, they tend to look at me with a little confusion. I guess it's understandable " I graduated from university back in July. Plus, they know me too well to think I'd spend the sunny season cooped up in classes. 

Actually, I hadn't heard of CMS Summer School until last September, when I was invited by a friend to come along. Initially I thought it must have something to do with textbooks and school desks. And then when my friend told me it was a Christian conference" well, for a split second I thought it might be some sort of "remedial' Christian conference " maybe an intensive study program where you revise Sunday School lessons you hadn't memorized quite right.

But now Summer School has just begun and I've realised that it isn't any regular school. And I am excited in a way I was never able to be for classes. As the months have trickled past, I have begun to see how enormous this week will be; and not just in terms of numbers of attendees! I'm preparing myself for a week of being challenged " to think about the call to mission that God has placed on everyone, and what it will look like in my life. I'm looking forward to hearing from and chatting with the host of international speakers and CMS missionaries that will gather up at Katoomba.

So I embrace the confusion when I get asked how I'm spending my summer. Because I get to explain that rather than remedial classes, I'm heading to the mountains to hear some solid teaching, to make new friends, to find out what's been happening in this big wide world and to seek out the will of the Lord for my life. And what's more exciting to talk about than that?