Home is...

• Home is tea and crumpets with Grandma
• Home is sitting in the yard listening to crickets while the sun goes down
• Home is squeals of delight as nieces and nephews throw their arms around my neck
• Home is sweet corn all over my face and possibly in my hair
• Home is my favorite thrift store and a husband who suggests it... twice!
• Home is beautiful flat roads and nice Iowa drivers
• Home is five days without staring at my computer, and not really missing it
• Home is being loved on by family, friends, and church family until your heart overflows
• Home is double bacon corn dogs and everything on a stick
• Home is oogling over huge pigs and pretty horses and a butter cow
• Home is presents all around
• Home is cuddling on the couch as the summer breezes blow through the house 
• Home is Fox News on TV all day long and lots of sports
• Home is a late-night bonfire with friends
• Home is cool summer breezes and actually needing a sweater
• Home is corn fields and meadows and SO much green
• Home is the wonder of holding my baby niece for the first time
• Home is people we love and cherish so very much
• Home is IOWA!

And now we´re back in another of our "Home"s and preparing for the start of a busy school year. 

My Messy Life

 I love that in order to make something beautiful, you have to make a mess first. It's a beautiful metaphor for life and especially for my life right now. At this time of the year, the to-do list is long and stress runs high, which means that friendships can be messy, homes can be messy, and desks can be messier and messier. When I sit down to do a puzzle or make a scarf or mosaic or really anything creative, I spread all my stuff out and proceed to make the biggest mess I know how. Eventually, this disaster becomes something with shape and form and, finally, some sort of beauty. Similarly, when paper-writing begins, my desktop is a mess of articles and drafts, and as I work I try to make some sort of sense out of the chaos that will (hopefully) turn into a reasonably understandable piece of creativity and research. As I start my next big project, the writing of my "obra maestra", my thesis, I'm sure that it will be a messy process, but I'm excited about both the mess and the outcome, remembering that sometimes the beauty is in the process itself. Today I'm thanking Jesus for making beauty out of chaos through his redemption of all things messy!

Roots

A few weeks ago I made a little trip up to Dallas to visit my oh-so-adorable little nephew. On my way home, I made a short stop over at Grandma and Grandpa Agee's house to get in a little visit. Little did I know that I would be leaving two hours later with  two pots of mint, a bag full of soil, and instructions to water, but don't drown! (This is actually good advice for an Andrea who has never been able to get anything to actually grow before now.) I brought the mint home, carefully transplanted it into my big beautiful pot, and waited patiently for it to grow. I figured it wouldn't be all that hard, after all, this mint was already growing. It already had roots from Grandma's backyard, where it was planted six years ago when they brought it from Colorado, where Grandma had planted it after carrying it between her legs on the long ride up from Oaxaca. I figured... if it can survive all those trips, of course it can survive a two hour ride down to Waco! 

So, I expected the leaves to just keep on growing. I was horrified then, when every piece of mint in my planter turned brown and dry the day after I moved it here. I had failed again! At that moment, I was ready to give up on ever getting a plant to grow. Little did I know that it's not the leaves, but the roots that need to survive. In some crazy state of mind, I watered the brown leaves and carefully opened the window for the sun to shine in each morning. I talked to my little plant, hoping beyond hope that brown didn't mean dead. For six days there were no signs of growth. Then, one morning, as I greeted my dead little mint plant, I noticed what seemed to be a speck of green among all that ugly brown. Oh how I rejoiced!! I brought Aaron down to see it, and he begrudgingly agreed that it was actually maybe growing. 

Now the green stalks are about 8 inches high, and my sweet little mint plant reminds me of a deeper truth going on in my life. I am putting down roots. From Oaxaca to Wheaton to Des Moines I've traveled. Each place I've put down my own little roots just like the mint plant. Every time I get uprooted it takes time to move past the dryness of a new place, but each time, little by little, new growth occurs. Friendships are made, memories happen, and roots grow deep. Today we joined our church here in Waco, and I am reminded once again of the roots I've left behind, and the new roots I'm growing here in the heart of Texas. I love that our little lives are growing and flourishing along with my plant, and I hope these roots can grow as long as this is the place God has for us! So, today, in the season of thanksgiving, I am thankful for new roots.

Ten things I've been thinking about lately

1. Grad school really is the best days of my life!
2. Having a church like Calvary is a wonderful place for this time... having a church like Bondurant is a wonderful place to go home to!
3. I love languages... and I love linguistics! Mostly I just love this little part of my life that has exploded into being the rest of my life... and I'm so incredibly glad that three years ago I decided to be a Spanish major just so I could marry the love of my life. Best two decisions ever.
4. Good friends make good days even better.
5. I can't wait until the day when everyone I love can be together in heaven. Missing people just sucks...
6. ...especially missing my nieces and nephews. Those little bundles of cuteness truly are the light of my life.
7. I love kids and I love babies... it may be sooner than ten years from now that a little Woodard makes an appearance... just saying...
8. I love the idea of mentoring, and I love that my mentor for next semester will be a woman I can't wait to work with! Being mentored by brilliant, loving, godly women is such a blessing!
9. It's time for fall. And for Christmas. It's time for cool weather and sweaters and scarves and twinkle lights and presents under the tree.
10. I love the man I married. I love that he loves God, me, and sports so very much. And I love that soon he can (hopefully) put all three of those into a degree in Sports Ministry!

Basically, I love this wonderful little full and exciting life! That's what I've been thinking about lately.

Blessed

• Blessed by Rachael Lampa
• writers: Cindy Morgan, Ginny Owens

I may never climb a mountain
So I can see the world from there
I may never ride the waves
And taste the salty ocean air
Or build a bridge
That would last a hundred years
But no matter where the road leads
One thing is always clear

I am blessed, I am blessed
From when I rise up in the morning
Till I lay my head to rest, I feel You near me
You soothe me when I'm weary
Oh, Lord, for all the worst and all the best
I am blessed

You've given me joy, You've given me love
You give me strength when I want to give up
You came from Heaven to rescue my soul
This is the reason I know
I am blessed

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In the spring I blogged the lyrics to a song called "Blessings" by Laura Story. While the title of these two songs are very similar, the message is quite different. "Blessings" asks, "What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?" While "Blessed" acknowledges, "Oh, Lord, for all the worst and all the best, I am blessed". This is how I feel right now. So blessed. The trials aren't over now, but in the trials, I see so much blessing and so much joy. I am so undeserving of the showers of love that God has poured on me over these last few months. All I can be is thankful...

"Is this ACTUALLY my life... how did I get so lucky?"

Yesterday in class, in the middle of a discussion on psychoanalytic critical analysis and it's aporte to literature in general, and Latin American short story, in specific, I was suddenly overcome by a total sense of awe at the incredible blessing it is for me to actually get to live this life God has given me! I can't believe I'm so blessed to be able to spend my days studying and learning languages and I get to spend my evenings growing and building deep friendships with other people who are my age and interested in a lot of the same stuff I am.

I said to a friend this morning, "I wish I could just sit around for the rest of my life and discuss languages and linguistics and literature... oh, wait, I do!!!" Learning about how we say things and talk to one another, and how we put those words together to mean beautiful and wonderful things that speak so deeply to who we are and what we believe, I just love it! My classes are so intriguing and entertaining. Aside from just taking classes, I've gotten to sit in on other professor's intro-level classes, and I must say, I'm enjoying that immensely as well! We're learning invaluable strategies and teaching methods that I no-doubt will use frequently next year in my own classroom. I even had a chance this week to teach a lesson to an upper-level class, and I loved it! I taught a short lesson on written accents and was so pleased when one of the students came up to me after class to say just how enlightening my lesson had been! Teaching, in general, just gives me a total rush! Also, it's so fun to tutor and chat with students who are excited about learning Spanish and working really hard at it, or, in contrast, to inspire students to love the language and appreciate the need to learn to communicate effectively with those who don't speak English. I feel so passionately about this and I just can't contain myself when I get to share that passion with someone else! What a blessing!

Another huge blessing is the fact that, after class on Wednesdays, I get to turn around and do the opposite of what I do all morning, and that is teaching English to the dear people who faithfully show up to the church each week to learn more and, in their words, "to be better for this country." I work with the advanced group, so they speak pretty good English, and most of them have lived in the U.S. for many years, but we are working on advanced grammar and writing, which can be a challenge for me.

Every other night of the week, I get to study, spend time with my wonderful husband, and hang out with our many new friends here in Waco. Basically, I'm the most blessed and the most spoiled girl in all of Texas, if not the world! I love what I'm doing right now. I love my studies; I love my free time. We have wonderful friends and a wonderful church. We're even close enough to Dallas to get to see family every few weeks. I couldn't ask for more, and I can't believe this is actually my life!

Aaron and I at the Baylor football game where we defeated TCU  "SIC'EM BEARS!"

Days of Blessing

School starts on Monday, and the imminent end to this stage of waiting is causing me to look back on these past few months since we moved to Waco. If I had to use one word to characterize these last few months, it would definitely be: BLESSING. It's been scary and exciting, lazy and exhausting, lonely and friend-ful.

Thinking back, I would characterize the first month as a month of family. Starting with our trip down and the time we got to spend with Grandma and Grandpa Agee, Jack's birth on June 14th, Mommy and Daddy's visit to Dallas and Waco, Lauren's wedding which brought us ALL together, Sarah's visit to Waco and our trip to Abilene, hanging out with Matthew and Jason in Dallas and their fun trip here... and of course, our many, many trips to Dallas and back, spending time with our Agee-side family has been full of so much blessing. They love us and love on us so much and I'm so thankful for the time we got to spend with them.

Since the middle of July, though, our lives have been filled with blessing from another source: our new-found friends. We found a church and have started to get plugged in there. The people are so friendly, the services are so God-honoring, and the ways to get involved are so missional and outreaching, that we go each week feeling simply blessed to be a part of it. Also, Aaron got a job at Mission Waco, and even his first few days of working there have been such a blessing for him. Last Sunday we attended the Mission Waco staff dinner, where we met the rest of the staff and learned about all the many ministries they have here in Waco and around the world. It truly is an amazing organization, and we're so glad we get to be a part of it. But most of all, we've been so blessed to be surrounded by new friends. We literally meet dozens of new friends each day. Adam and Brando, our next-door neighbors, have become dear friends who have continually been introducing us to more and more people. Since we're not super-outgoing to begin with, having this mode of introduction to a world of wonderful people has been a huge blessing.

All this to say, I'm just so thankful that God has brought us here for this time. I clearly see his hand guiding us, and these days of blessing have confirmed our decision to move down here to pursue my education. I'm so looking forward to school starting, but I'm hoping and praying that the blessings won't run out just because I have to spend all my time in the library from now on. For now, I'm just soaking up the outpouring of love and giving thanks to the One who sends it all.