Lifework Podcast

In this episode of the Lifework Podcast, President Stan Norman sits down with Caleb Garner, Chair of the Department of Health and Physical Education and Assistant Professor of Sports Management at Williams Baptist University. Caleb shares how growing up in the “boondocks” of Brooksville, Mississippi, in a close-knit, church-centered community and a hardworking family shaped his view of vocation and calling.

He reflects on watching his parents persevere through job loss and tough seasons, early experiences working in his grandfather’s feed store, and the formative influence of camp work that taught him to see even unseen tasks as service to Christ. Along the way, Caleb talks about his lifelong love of athletics—right down to his quirky gift for “chasing mascots,” memorizing college teams and stats—and how God used that passion, together with key mentors and campus jobs, to begin steering him toward a future in sports management.

Learn more about the health & physical education department at WBU: https://williamsbu.edu/physicaleducation/

In last week’s episode, Janna Himschoot shared how farm life, family, and faith in Hardy, Arkansas, laid the groundwork for her calling as a wife, mother, and future educator. If you missed that conversation about lifework, you’ll want to go back and listen before jumping into this powerful continuation. 

This week, WBU President Dr. Stan Norman welcomes Janna back to trace the next chapter of her journey—from corporate accounting during the tech boom, to an unexpected pivot into healthcare, to the humbling season of tutoring alongside her dad. 

Janna describes how God used a missed job opportunity, long commutes, and an online MBA to reshape her understanding of success and to deepen her desire to pour into students, not just bottom lines. She tells the story of arriving on the Williams campus and sensing, almost immediately, “Now everything makes sense,” as years of work experience, motherhood, and ministry converged into a clear sense of lifework and calling. 

Janna also reflects on helping shape Williams Works, why her most fulfilling work now is “being a mom” to her students, and the simple phrase she shares with them—and would share with her younger self: trust the process.

Learn more about the business department at WBU: https://williamsbu.edu/business

What if your sense of calling started with a cattle loan at age 12 and evenings spent checking cows with your dad? 

In this episode, WBU President Dr. Stan Norman sits down with Assistant Professor of Business Janna Himschoot to explore how God used small-town Hardy, Arkansas, hard work on a 300-acre farm, and deeply rooted family faith to shape her lifework and purpose. Janna shares why motherhood was her first calling, how a Girl State workshop pointed her toward accounting, and why she never wavered in her resolve to build a life that put faith and family first. Along the way, she reflects on growing up in a multigenerational church her great-grandparents founded, meeting her husband in the cattle barn at the county fair, and learning that simple, steady obedience is often where God forges our true vocation. 

Stay tuned—next week, Janna returns to talk about corporate accounting, doors that didn’t open, surprising pivots into healthcare and tutoring, and how God ultimately led her to discover her lifework in the college classroom.

Learn more about the business department at WBU: https://williamsbu.edu/business

In part two of our conversation with Belina Dulaney, professor of mathematics at Williams Baptist University, she shares how God redirected her carefully laid career plans and revealed a surprising calling to the classroom. From orientation day at ASU and dreams of becoming an actuary, to discovering a deep sense of ease and joy while teaching as a graduate assistant, Dulaney traces the moments when God clearly overruled her “never going to teach” resolve.

She reflects on her year in a high school classroom in a low-income community, the emotional toll and deep fulfillment of investing in students’ lives, and the leap of faith that brought her to Williams Baptist University. Dulaney also explains why she sees God as the ultimate mathematician, pointing to patterns, harmony, and design in both creation and the golden ratio that she highlights in her contemporary math classes. This episode invites listeners to consider how God weaves gifts, personality, and unexpected opportunities into a clear sense of calling and purpose.

In this LifeWork Podcast episode, host Dr. Stan Norman sits down with Belina Dulaney, Assistant Professor of Natural Sciences – Mathematics at Williams Baptist University, to explore how God uses numbers, work, and hardship to shape a calling. From growing up in a single–parent home in small–town Arkansas to becoming a valedictorian with 52 college credit hours and eventually a college math professor, Belina shares how her mother’s unwavering work ethic and faith created a culture of consistency, integrity, and perseverance in their family.

Mrs. Dulaney opens up about becoming pregnant at 15, the loneliness that followed, and how the unconditional love she experienced from her mother and her church family became the crucible where her trust in Christ became real. She and Dr. Norman talk candidly about disappointment, expectations, and what it means when someone tells you, “You were almost perfect,” and how God meets us when our image of perfection collapses.

The conversation also dives into why so many people have a negative experience with math, why she jokes that she teaches “all the math,” and how she helps students see that “everybody does math every day” and that creation itself reflects a God who is a kind of mathematician. This episode will encourage anyone who has wrestled with failure, felt written off by others, or wondered how their work, their story, and even their struggles can be used by God in His larger equation for their life.

In Part 2 of this Lifework conversation, host Dr. Stan Norman picks up Dr. Trevor Babcock’s story right where the cliffhanger left off: a clear, lifelong plan to become a chemical engineer—and the slow-motion collapse of that plan in the real world of co-op work, panic attacks, and an unexpected loss of desire for the career he had built his identity around. Trevor describes how God used that work experience not to confirm his calling, but to clarify that engineering was not it, leading him through psychology and, finally, into an English degree that fit his loves more than his family legacy did.

From there, Trevor walks through a winding path of substitute teaching (including the one memorable job he was fired from), a move to New York City and graduate school at NYU, and a season of spiritual drift in the “big, crowded, lonely” city that culminated in a shocking cancer diagnosis discovered only because he was worried about the health consequences of his own bad choices. He reflects on how God used that lowest point—his worst behavior and deepest rebellion—to literally save his life, reshaping his view of God’s providence, anxiety, and control.

Trevor then traces how “just do the next right thing” became his practical theology of calling: adjunct teaching in Texas during the recession, a PhD at Indiana University, and eventually a faculty role at Williams Baptist University, all discerned not by dramatic signs but by biblical wisdom, community, prayer, and ordinary obedience. Finally, he opens a window into his day-to-day vocation in the classroom—using world literature, Augustine, Boethius, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet to talk about virtue, suffering, depression, and hope—and explains how sharing his own story of darkness and redemption helps students see that they are not alone and that God can also work through their pain to shape their lifework

In this first part of a two-episode conversation, Lifework host Dr. Stan Norman sits down with Williams Baptist University English professor Dr. Trevor Babcock to trace the unlikely path that shaped his calling and character. From a childhood that bounced between Kentucky, Cincinnati, and the suburbs of Sacramento, to a home marked by Naval Academy discipline on one side and pastoral ministry on the other, Trevor reflects on how family, frequent moves, and church life quietly formed his view of work, faith, and responsibility.

Trevor candidly revisits the darkest season of his adolescence—an isolating mid–seventh grade move back to snowy Cincinnati, deep depression, and even getting kicked out of his church youth group—and explains why, even as a cancer survivor, he still calls that winter the worst experience of his life. He then shares how God “turned the lights on” at a Young Life camp before his freshman year, transforming a sullen, self-loathing “little goth boy” into a student leader eager to bring others to Christ.

Along the way, listeners get a glimpse into the Naval Academy–shaped work ethic of his father, the quiet, faithful labor of his stay-at-home mom, and the early clarity that he was destined to follow the family engineering legacy—even as God was preparing to redirect his gifts toward the classroom and the study of literature. This episode sets the stage for part two, where Dr. Babcock’s story moves from chemical engineering dreams to an unexpected vocation in English and Christian higher education.

In this second conversation with Coach John Mayberry, Dr. Stan Norman explores how God redirected a plan that once pointed toward North Texas and college soccer into a life of ministry through Christian higher education and basketball at Williams. Coach Mayberry traces the unlikely path from Foot Locker management, to working in recycling, to a last‑minute trip to Williams Baptist University that made it clear he was supposed to be here.

He shares why he majored in Christian ministries, how God shifted his calling from traditional youth ministry into college students, admissions, and coaching, and how serving as an admissions counselor and assistant coach prepared him to lead the Lady Eagles.

Mayberry unpacks his theology of calling and work, why he wants players to see him first as a Christian husband, father, and man of integrity, and how he prays specifically for the players God wants him to coach—not just the ones with the best stats. This episode is a clear picture of what lifework looks like when you trust that the Lord’s plan is bigger than your own.

In this episode of the Lifework Podcast, Dr. Stan Norman sits down with Coach John Mayberry, head coach of the Williams Baptist Lady Eagles, to trace an unlikely journey from inner-city Hot Springs, Arkansas to the sidelines in Walnut Ridge. Coach Mayberry shares stories of growing up in a blue-collar home, learning the value of hard work from a dad who never complained and a mom who logged 30+ years at the hospital.

He talks about church buses, zebra cakes, and a youth pastor with a basketball goal who introduced him both to the game and to a clear presentation of the gospel that led to his conversion in high school. You’ll hear how he fell in love with basketball late, honed his game in gyms all over Hot Springs, and eventually found his way to Williams, first as a student–athlete and now as the head women’s coach.

This conversation is a rich picture of lifework—how God uses family, work ethic, church, and sport to shape a calling that serves student–athletes today.

In this second conversation with Williams Baptist University head men’s basketball coach Josh Austin, host Dr. Stan Norman picks up the story right where Part 1 left off—at the moment when faith moved from the margins of Josh’s life to the center of his calling. Josh shares how a hard sophomore season, a stairwell conversation with a stranger, and a renewed hunger for God’s Word reshaped his priorities, redirected his dreams of the NBA, and clarified his desire to use coaching as a platform for ministry rather than just a pathway to wins and summers off.

From there, the conversation turns to calling, mentors, and the long obedience of showing up: Josh talks about the coaches who formed him, the step of faith that took him from unpaid volunteer to 24-year-old interim head coach, and the surprising way God “kicked him through” an open door into college coaching leadership. He also reflects on how God eventually led him and his family to Williams, giving them a deep sense of peace that this small campus in Northeast Arkansas was the place they were meant to plant their lives and ministry.

Josh and Dr. Norman then walk through one of the hardest vocational seasons of his career—a year of losses, culture challenges, and discouragement on the court—and how passages like Galatians 6 taught him not to “grow weary in doing good” even when the scoreboard said otherwise. Josh explains his coaching philosophy, why he believes every player is wired to want to win, and how he is working with team chaplain Pastor Jamar to help young men find their true identity in Christ rather than in minutes, stats, or results.

The episode concludes with a deeply personal story of loss and community: Josh recounts the night his family received a 1:30 a.m. phone call that their campus home in the Cove was on fire, what it was like to FaceTime while watching their house burn, and how returning to a smoke-damaged home and a daughter’s ruined bedroom became a classroom of grace. Through the hands and feet of the Williams community—housing, practical care, and presence—Josh and his family experienced what it means for the body of Christ to carry one another’s burdens, and how God often uses trials not only to sustain us, but to prepare us to comfort others with the comfort we have received.

If you are a coach, parent, student-athlete, or anyone wrestling with calling in a season that feels more like loss than victory, this episode will help you see how God can redeem disappointing seasons, redirect ambitions, and use even house fires and hard years to deepen trust, shape character, and reframe what it really means to “win” in Christ.