00:00:02
uh I like the community and I feel I
00:00:04
love that it's a safe space and my big
00:00:07
thing is family that's what it feels
00:00:09
like to me that we're all family we're
00:00:11
all like United that's what espan means
00:00:14
it's like Hispanics United we're all
00:00:17
we're all
00:00:18
[Music]
00:00:21
United
00:00:23
howy welcome back to the couch the
00:00:26
office of spiritual Life podcast mace is
00:00:29
here with today our worship and
00:00:31
production coordinator what's up y'all I
00:00:34
am Avery Rosen Huff one of your campus
00:00:36
ministers and just like we said in our
00:00:39
first episode this podcast is for us not
00:00:43
only interviewing Chapel speakers
00:00:45
deepening conversation around our renew
00:00:47
theme we also wanted to platform student
00:00:50
voices on this podcast and we have our
00:00:53
very first student today an aara the
00:00:56
president of hispanos unidos to talk
00:00:59
with us a little about her story what
00:01:01
God's doing in her life and learn more
00:01:03
about hispanos Unos today hello Anna hey
00:01:06
thank you for having me we're so happy
00:01:08
you're here take some bravery to be the
00:01:10
first one so she's amazing real talk it
00:01:13
really does um we want to start just
00:01:16
with a little Icebreaker question to
00:01:17
kick us
00:01:19
off Icebreaker question Anna are you
00:01:21
ready I am ready ready for the
00:01:24
cast what are you listening to slw
00:01:27
watching at the moment so I guess like
00:01:30
like music podcast yeah TV shows TV show
00:01:34
movies even yep so what I'm listening to
00:01:37
right now is way maker M but in
00:01:41
Spanish it goes so much harder I'm not
00:01:43
even going to lie it's so much better so
00:01:45
good I listen to it on my way to school
00:01:48
and on my way to work so it just that's
00:01:51
how I start my morning and what I've
00:01:53
been watching is Gilmore Girls oh just
00:01:57
because we're starting fall I was about
00:01:58
to say Good Vibes yeah who's your
00:02:00
favorite
00:02:02
character I would say Lura okay and are
00:02:05
you a Jesse or Dean
00:02:08
girl I don't know is like what's going I
00:02:12
can't contribute
00:02:14
to I would say Jesse okay what about you
00:02:19
I I've only watched a couple seasons and
00:02:22
I know it's such a red flag of mine to
00:02:24
say Dean cuz I Know How It Ends but I'm
00:02:27
not going to spoil it for those who
00:02:28
haven't seen it even though you've had
00:02:29
like years to watch it but I think I'm a
00:02:32
Dean girl I know red flag on my case but
00:02:35
that's okay okay so Gilmore Girls way
00:02:38
maker love it nice um okay tell us a
00:02:43
little about yourself what year are you
00:02:45
what's your major Hometown let's get all
00:02:48
those uh formalities out of the way okay
00:02:50
so I'm from Merkel Texas which is a
00:02:53
20-minute drive on a good day and I'm a
00:02:56
junior nursing major with a minor in
00:02:58
psychology
00:03:00
that's a really good combination I have
00:03:02
a real quick question what defines a
00:03:04
good day of driving and a bad day of
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driving to make it like I don't
00:03:08
difference in time you seen but they are
00:03:10
currently working on I20 oh I didn't
00:03:12
know this and like they've been working
00:03:13
on I20 for I feel like
00:03:15
forever but so there will be traffic
00:03:18
almost all the time so like construction
00:03:21
yeah road construction cuz they coming
00:03:23
from so I'm coming from merel further
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west yes okay cool yeah yeah you heard
00:03:29
of the
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gorillas it's another school out that
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way I was just hoping you'd know it
00:03:35
what's Merle Badgers yeah it's Merle
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Badgers my husband used to be a teacher
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a specialed middle school teacher out in
00:03:41
Merkel did you go to Merkel Middle
00:03:42
School I did crazy nice yeah I went to
00:03:44
merkl my whole life Badgers is kind of a
00:03:46
cool I like the
00:03:48
badg I was a lady Badger though oh yeah
00:03:52
lady Badgers okay shout out shout out
00:03:55
lady
00:03:56
Badgers Okay you're from Merkel tell us
00:03:58
about your family you have any siblings
00:04:00
yeah so my dad is actually from s Louis
00:04:03
POI Mexico okay my mom is from here from
00:04:06
aene oh my goodness yeah so we've been
00:04:09
in here around the area for quite a
00:04:11
while uh I have three siblings I'm the
00:04:15
oldest nice yeah how do you like being
00:04:17
an older child it's it's a lot of
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pressure but I do like it because like
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right now I'm building that path for
00:04:23
them so like it's so much easier for
00:04:25
them and so like I love whenever they're
00:04:28
like hey Anna can you help me with this
00:04:29
and they're like yeah I'm like yeah yeah
00:04:31
I'll help you and so like it just it's
00:04:34
like some sort of like reward yeah that
00:04:36
I get but yeah my sister she's 17 she's
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a senior in high school and then the
00:04:42
little sister she is about to be 14 on
00:04:44
the 20th a mhm so we're going to start
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planing her ketta nice so three girls
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there's three girls and then my baby
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brother a well I say baby but he's he's
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10 okay are you all close always brother
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though yeah yeah yeah we are really
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close though that's I like that that's
00:05:03
awesome okay I would love to know how
00:05:05
your parents met yeah so my mom's
00:05:09
parents are from the same area that my
00:05:11
dad is from mhm and so they actually
00:05:14
lived they were next door neighbors
00:05:16
basically and they grew up I I think
00:05:19
they had like a sort of LoveHate
00:05:21
relationship oh that's the yeah uh but
00:05:26
they started playing like Outdoors
00:05:28
they'd play soccer what whatever in the
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street and then they just I guess as
00:05:32
they grew older they were like oh hey
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like I like you and they've been
00:05:36
together since they were about 15
00:05:38
wow High School
00:05:40
sweethearts I love that mhm okay so
00:05:43
you've been your abing your whole life
00:05:45
yep um and you are from a small town
00:05:49
yeah merkle's pretty small uh I feel
00:05:51
like it is kind of growing though but
00:05:53
what I like about I always say Merle's
00:05:55
like a small but tight-knit
00:05:57
Community I always feel like every
00:05:59
everyone's there to like lend a hand if
00:06:01
you need it and that's what I really
00:06:02
liked about merel that's sweet shout out
00:06:05
Merk kind of like a just a big family
00:06:07
yeah just a big family everybody knows
00:06:08
each other the big Merkel family big
00:06:10
Merkel family yeah um well coming from
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just kind of a small small school and
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smaller town MH um I'm assuming Merkel
00:06:19
is not like a really big school no I my
00:06:23
graduating class was 70 okay yeah yeah
00:06:27
very very different than my graduating
00:06:28
class from the Dallas area but yes so
00:06:31
coming to
00:06:33
ACU do you have any classes where you
00:06:35
have like 70 people in them well
00:06:38
actually I did a developmental psych
00:06:41
yeah it was like it was in the heart
00:06:43
Auditorium yes heart Auditorium and it
00:06:45
was huge I was like I'm not used to this
00:06:49
yeah so talk a little bit about that
00:06:51
transition
00:06:52
of kind of coming from a smaller school
00:06:55
where like you said you have 70 people
00:06:56
in your graduating class to AC where
00:06:59
yeah you did have one class you know ACU
00:07:02
does have smaller classes but one class
00:07:04
where you have 70 people and so what's
00:07:06
that transition from a small school to a
00:07:09
big school like ACU and just moving from
00:07:12
high school to college MH okay um it was
00:07:16
definitely a hard transition I would say
00:07:19
just because like at in high school I
00:07:22
would see everybody and I knew them
00:07:24
whereas here I'm like I see a new person
00:07:27
every day and like to this day I still
00:07:29
feel like I see a new person every day
00:07:32
and so that was kind of hard on me cuz
00:07:34
like coming here I didn't know anybody
00:07:37
cuz all my friends went like to Tech M
00:07:41
yeah and I was only I was the odd one
00:07:43
and came to
00:07:46
ACU yeah uh but yeah it was hard for me
00:07:50
to make friends here I guess I could say
00:07:54
but uh I met my friends during wild cat
00:07:57
week so that was good and I I what I
00:08:00
liked about ACU is that we had that wild
00:08:02
cat week we had those Mentor groups and
00:08:04
we had that
00:08:06
um where uh what's it called when you
00:08:09
like you go and meet your Mentor groups
00:08:11
for the first time I feel like they had
00:08:12
a name for that ceremony I don't know I
00:08:15
don't remember I don't remember either
00:08:17
but that's where I met everybody and
00:08:19
that's that was nice um it is nice here
00:08:22
though what I like about it is that like
00:08:24
my professors are like there to help me
00:08:27
yeah they're invested they want you to
00:08:29
succeed yeah they do when succeed they
00:08:31
do do you what would be your friendship
00:08:35
hack coming from a place where he felt a
00:08:37
little isolated and overwhelmed what was
00:08:39
your friendship friendship hack for
00:08:41
getting to know
00:08:42
people uh get out of your show
00:08:45
definitely that was hard for me like
00:08:47
growing up I everyone knew me as like
00:08:50
the shy kid in school and so my mom that
00:08:53
advice she was like you need to learn to
00:08:55
like get out of your shell and I was
00:08:57
like okay so so um yeah just getting out
00:09:01
of your comfort zone MH it was the life
00:09:04
hack that I had like if you see someone
00:09:06
like sitting alone just like go up to
00:09:07
them and be like hey like my name's um
00:09:10
Anna and like you want to be friends
00:09:13
yeah basically yeah it's basically I say
00:09:15
yes I want to be your friend yeah I mean
00:09:17
that's bold and and courageous and a lot
00:09:19
of people especially in today's world um
00:09:22
really struggle with that so really
00:09:24
props to you for thanks being able and
00:09:27
as a shy person natur
00:09:31
to just go and like hey
00:09:35
like what's your name you want to be
00:09:37
friends and I think that's great yeah
00:09:41
okay so you are the and let's talk about
00:09:44
naturally being shy you're the president
00:09:46
of hispanas Neos yes walk us through
00:09:50
when you got involved okay why you
00:09:52
wanted to run to be president I don't
00:09:54
know how y'all's election works I'm
00:09:57
assuming there was Voting and all the
00:09:58
things maybe
00:09:59
um why you love it okay uh so I started
00:10:04
to become a what you call a member it's
00:10:06
just like being active in their
00:10:08
organization there's officers there's
00:10:10
members um but I joined my freshman
00:10:13
year and I like the community there and
00:10:16
like it felt like a safe space for me
00:10:18
especially like like being Hispanic uh I
00:10:21
was able to like I guess like um
00:10:24
communicate with them and had that same
00:10:27
like traditions that um I was used to
00:10:30
and then
00:10:31
um I decided to run in spring in this
00:10:35
spring of
00:10:37
2024 so what we did was It was kind of
00:10:40
new I don't think they've uh done this
00:10:42
method before but uh so we all the ones
00:10:46
that were interested in running like we
00:10:47
just sat there and we went up there and
00:10:49
we decide we told them like why we
00:10:51
wanted to be a member of hu and so like
00:10:55
everybody just voted among themselves
00:10:58
and um the reason I wanted to be um
00:11:01
president was because like I feel like H
00:11:05
was kind of like I don't want to say
00:11:08
like it kind of like went downhill but I
00:11:10
feel like when I went around people were
00:11:12
like oh what is Hu like you haven't
00:11:15
heard of it and I'm like like okay so
00:11:17
like I I wanted to rebuild that
00:11:19
foundation and make it like known to
00:11:22
like all Hispanics but not only
00:11:23
Hispanics to like everyone because
00:11:25
obviously like we value everyone we
00:11:26
welcome everyone we want everybody know
00:11:28
that we're here you but we also like our
00:11:31
mission is to um educate the ACU
00:11:34
Community but also the abing community
00:11:36
of our Hispanic tradition our values and
00:11:42
um forgot what I was going to say but
00:11:45
yeah it's a great it's a great purpose
00:11:47
statement that you just th out there
00:11:49
yeah I want to add a question but I know
00:11:52
I didn't prep you for this question but
00:11:56
with that in mind and being at a
00:11:58
Christian School growing up in the
00:12:00
Christian faith how has your connection
00:12:03
to your
00:12:05
heritage cultivated your faith and grown
00:12:08
it okay your relationship with God
00:12:12
um Hispanics like we're obviously like
00:12:15
very religious or like from where I'm
00:12:18
from we're very religious like I always
00:12:19
grew up going to church on Sundays um
00:12:22
doing like um just anything religious my
00:12:25
grandma uh when I would travel to Mexico
00:12:28
she would take me to church with her
00:12:30
three times a day on Sunday and then
00:12:32
we'd go on Wednesday again wow yeah so
00:12:36
uh I was always really close to God but
00:12:39
I feel like my second semester my second
00:12:42
to third semester I kind of like lost my
00:12:44
faith a little bit but being part of hu
00:12:47
has been able to like get me back into
00:12:50
that path with God yeah I feel like yeah
00:12:53
okay so yeah kind of back with h what
00:12:55
other other things that you really enjoy
00:12:57
about it uh I like the community and I
00:13:00
feel I love that it's a safe space and
00:13:03
my big thing is family that's what it
00:13:06
feels like to me that we're all family
00:13:08
we're all like United that's what espano
00:13:10
sonidos means it's like Hispanics United
00:13:13
we're all we're all United here is
00:13:16
called Sol Faith which means only faith
00:13:19
and so what that means is like she wants
00:13:21
to plug in that like for freshman mainly
00:13:25
for freshman but like for anybody who's
00:13:27
having a hard time hard time time like
00:13:30
connecting with God in um in their
00:13:33
transition from high school to college
00:13:36
and like I feel like a bunch of freshmen
00:13:37
like lose their faith but we want to let
00:13:41
them know that we're here for you God is
00:13:43
here for you and um we're helping them
00:13:47
like build their faith in our Chapel I
00:13:49
love that that's great I mean that ties
00:13:52
so well into like you had chapel today
00:13:54
I'm guessing even what we were talking
00:13:57
about in Moody Chapel of Jared's point
00:14:00
being like God is for you and so I think
00:14:02
that's just so great and something that
00:14:05
a lot of young freshman need to know is
00:14:08
that it's so daunting coming to college
00:14:12
but knowing that at least someone is for
00:14:15
you and not only someone it's the Lord
00:14:18
who can be there for you more than
00:14:20
anyone else and so I think that's that's
00:14:22
great and that's amazing you doing some
00:14:24
really really great things yeah when my
00:14:26
chaplain came to me with that idea I was
00:14:28
like I love that
00:14:29
it's so good and I think something else
00:14:32
we talked about in Chapel today that
00:14:34
Jared Robinson said he said doesn't
00:14:37
matter where you came from where you're
00:14:39
going if you even believe in God or not
00:14:42
God is for you and so I just think about
00:14:44
the times that you feel like you were
00:14:45
far in your faith doesn't
00:14:48
matter what you look like on this campus
00:14:51
what you're involved in what you're not
00:14:52
involved and where your academics are
00:14:55
whether you're a a student or F student
00:14:57
like God is for you God sees you God
00:14:59
knows you regardless of how much you
00:15:02
feel like you're in control or not um
00:15:04
and so I just think it's powerful to
00:15:07
just hear that but then to have students
00:15:10
empowering other students and saying the
00:15:12
same thing in amazing safe spaces like H
00:15:15
is just like cherry on top yeah love it
00:15:19
well Anna to wrap us up um if you could
00:15:22
give any college student from 18 to
00:15:27
however old college students can be what
00:15:31
encouragement or advice would you give
00:15:33
them okay so I have two oh yay let's go
00:15:36
my first one is when I like started to
00:15:40
lose a little faith I found a Bible
00:15:42
verse and I would say like find a verse
00:15:45
that like really connects to you and
00:15:47
it's like it's going to keep you going
00:15:48
so I look at that in hard times and I
00:15:50
would say Jeremiah
00:15:52
29:11 um that's what I uh like read
00:15:56
whenever I'm having a hard time or even
00:15:58
a good day MH and then my other advice
00:16:01
is go to your professors go to office
00:16:04
hours because your professors want you
00:16:06
to succeed and that's my biggest advice
00:16:09
because my freshman year I was too
00:16:11
afraid to ask questions and I didn't go
00:16:14
to any office hours and then like I was
00:16:16
like okay maybe I really do need to
00:16:18
start going to see them and I did and I
00:16:20
was like okay like I see that my
00:16:22
professor is actually here for me yeah
00:16:25
so that's advice it is a great
00:16:27
advice wow oh I appreciate how bold you
00:16:31
are cuz you can encourage and being the
00:16:35
president um it gives you a lot of a lot
00:16:38
of space to encourage other students to
00:16:40
be bold and yeah ask their professor's
00:16:44
question go up to people and like say
00:16:47
hey like can I sit here um and those are
00:16:51
things that a lot of people can't do mhm
00:16:54
um or not even willing to do so
00:16:57
tremendous props to you on a for being
00:16:59
willing and courageous enough to do that
00:17:01
that's great great advice I I owe that
00:17:03
to my mom for a sh out mom sh out Mom I
00:17:07
love that okay well in review seek
00:17:11
people out dive into scripture talk to
00:17:15
your professors and hey check out hu
00:17:18
yeah yeah we have an event coming up
00:17:20
plug it I'll plug it plug the event it's
00:17:22
Monday September 16th uh it's after
00:17:24
Chapel just to start off Hispanic
00:17:26
Heritage Month with Isa yes and H will
00:17:29
be hosting Chapel that Friday and so you
00:17:32
will see them and you can talk to them
00:17:33
then if you would like to get well this
00:17:35
podcast will drop wedes that day
00:17:36
Wednesday yes hu is hosting next
00:17:38
Wednesday Wednesday thank you for the
00:17:39
cor sorry I hope I didn't freak you out
00:17:42
that the day was wrong and you can talk
00:17:44
with them if you see them yeah and
00:17:46
listen to this podcast well I guess if
00:17:48
you got to this point you already
00:17:49
listened to it okay thank you guys bye
00:17:54
[Music]
