Summer School: Growing our collective heart for mission
Post updated on: 28th October 2024
Originally posted on: 17th October 2022
For 32 years, Bruce and Libby have served as CMS missionaries in South Asia. Before that though, Bruce and Libby were just a regular, young couple, seeking God’s guidance for their lives. Here, Libby shares about the role Summer School had on her life as she considered cross-cultural mission.
It’s easy to elevate missionaries, to imagine them as people with superhuman powers of faith and virtue, possessing a dazzling set of skills, and perhaps even a red cape flying from their shoulders.
But for Libby, who has served as a missionary in South Asia (with her husband Bruce) since 1992, CMS Summer School gave her genuine interaction with missionaries that shaped her understanding of what a missionary really does .
“There was a missionary mum in the bathroom trying to get chewing gum out of her daughter’s hair and I thought, wow, they’re just a normal family dealing with everyday things,” Libby said.
“It was so reassuring to know they were still dealing with life’s little chewing gum experiences!”
Little did she know that God would flame the passion for cross-cultural mission in her own heart so that one day, she would be that normal family returning to Summer School and sharing the extraordinary things God had achieved through them.
It all began with CMS Summer School
Libby attended her first Summer School as an 18-year-old and has been attending every year since, as she has been able to. Prior to her first Summer School, Libby already had cross-cultural experience as an exchange student.
“I learnt a language and my relationship with God just flourished. It was me and him. I’d lost all my props -my family and my friends. So there was definitely a sense of God and me taking a day at a time together and Him showing me that cross-cultural ministry was where he wanted me to go.”
When she attended the CMS Summer Schools, she met missionaries and mission-hearted people just like her, and she found the time both inspiring and educational, discovering what God was doing around the world.
“Summer School was feeding that incredible sense of call that I had on my life”.
Libby met her husband, Bruce, at a Scripture Union beach mission in 1981, and brought him along to Summer School as well. Since then, they have attended for many years in an inquisitive and supportive capacity, until they came as missionaries.
“Summer School is the most significant event for having contact with the broad CMS family,” Bruce said.
“It’s hard work but it’s an incredibly encouraging time. It’s a unique opportunity to realise the broad range of people keen to be involved in God’s mission”.
Looking to the future
Bruce and Libby have four children, and they started their missionary journey in South Asia with three children already in tow, aged one, three and four. Each time the family returned to Australia and attended Summer School, the children found a tribe of like-minded youngsters, in a culture so different to the one they were used to.
Their children are now adults. By God’s supernatural work, one of their daughters and her family are missionaries with CMS.
In God’s strength, they really have achieved superhuman things, but now is the time for them to farewell the people and work in their location to return to Australia. At this year’s Summer School, attendees will be provided with the opportunity for down-to-earth conversations with missionaries like Bruce, Libby and their family.
CMS Summer School in January 2025
We’ve been equipping Christians for God’s global mission through Summer Schools for over 60 years, encouraging people to serve by going or sending. Our next Summer School will continue to be a place of fellowship, coming together to grow in understanding of the Bible and cross-cultural mission; growing our collective hearts for global mission.
People of all ages are welcome with a dedicated children & youth program (creche to grade 12). We would love to see you there.
Join in our fellowship
Summer School is not just for families. Summer School is for everyone. Young or old. Single or married. Australian or from another home country. Join us in fellowship if you have a heart for God’s global, big picture and cross-cultural mission.
