There will be one less familiar face in the religion department this next fall. Like several other professors, Professor of Religion Jackie Smallbones will be on sabbatical this fall semester.
From summer until the end of November, Smallbones will be hard at work on a writing project about spiritual formation.
“It’ll be called ‘Live the Story, Not the Dream,’ which I taught a class on, and I would like to flesh it out a little bit more, write some stories and then write some background,” Smallbones said.
Because a lot of research has been done and quite a bit of background material has been gathered, Smallbones now has the task of formatting.
“My job now is to sort it out and get the project organized and sort out who my audience is going to be and how I want to write for them,” Smallbones said. “I’m very interested in spiritual formation, so it’s going to be an audience concerned with spiritual formation people.”
Smallbones will be staying in Orange City.
“I will lay low; you will not see me very much,”Smallbones said.
Part-time faculty members will take over her classes.
“That’s the year I teach two biblical studies, so we got adjuncts to fill in for that,” Smallbones said. “And we’ve got an adjunct to fill in a two-credit Christian ed special topics class,” Smallbones said. “That’ll be our first Christian ed online course, so that’ll be interesting to see how that goes. But she (the adjunct) is really good in the field, according to Mitch Kinsinger.”
The semester won’t be all work and no play for Smallbones, however. At the end of November a trip is in store.
“I’m going to South Africa, and I’m going to take a month off to be with my family for Christmas for the first time in 10 years. “So that’ll be fun,” Smallbones said. “We’re planning that already.”
Her trips home are done during our summer months, which entail winter in South Africa. Spending Christmas there means she’ll be experiencing a South African summer. There is the aspect of timing that will go into the trip as well. A bit of work will need to be done while in South Africa, for an important reason.
“I’ll take my computer and do finishing up work and getting ready for spring because I’ll be coming back fairly late,” Smallbones said. “I think (my return date is) the third of January. Classes start the seventh. So I’ll still be struggling with jet lag when I get back.”
