Well You Gotta Have Friends!

The desire to have good friends has always been with me. I have always been what you might call "social" (or what my parents might have called embarrassing) as I constantly chatted up strangers as a child.

I remember, very clearly, filling out one of those, "I wish…, I hope…, I fear….," questionnaires in 3rd grade at Shades Mtn. Elementary school and writing: "I want…to have friends like in the Sprite commercials." What does that mean? You might ask…well, here ya go! :)

Did you see them? No, not the lady hiding a pig in her fur coat (what?!?), the girls sitting on the bench…thisclose to each other, laughing, being silly, not caring what anyone thought of them because they were in it together.

That's what I longed for, what I prayed for, for years and years and years...

My sister often sweetly tried to cheer me up by telling me that I had three sisters to be my friends. :) And that was very true, my sisters and I are very close and I love them so much. But I wanted friends that CHOSE me to be their friend, not because mom would ground them if they wouldn't let me play with them, but because they just wanted to be my friend.

I think God was teaching me so much through that time, how to rely on Him when I was lonely, to see that I wasn't always a good friend myself, and more…I think it also helped me to learn what a good friend is and what a good friend does.

Over and over again during this journey we've gotten to see what good friends (sisters, mothers, cousins, grandmothers, brothers, fathers, uncles, etc. included) look like.

Well…they look a lot like this:

These women (and the husbands, grandparents, etc. that stayed home and took care of the kids!) supported us in such a mighty way! They came out in DROVES to support our family through Jennifer & Brad Bradley's Fundraiser this past Sunday by creating beautiful hand painted frames that they got to take home.

Jennifer & Andrea Castleberry are some of the most creative women I know and create amazing art! Who wouldn't want to come learn from them and support a good cause in the process?!?

Not only did these women show their support by raising $800 ($800!!!!!) for us during this fundraiser, they have demonstrated their love and support to us over and over again through their friendship.

In addition to the Bradley's support through this fundraiser (and a repeat in October because there was such a great response!) and the Davis' support through our t-shirt fundraiser, the Schroeter's children set up a lemonade stand & raised money for us…the Diggs family is planning a Boston Butt sale…the Watson's will be hosting an Ugandan jewelry party…Mia Storia provided us with an outlet to share our story…many people have offered to donate items for a silent auction...not to mention the many who have sent money just because, or have sent an encouraging word or, most importantly, have been praying for our family.

Humbled, overwhelmed, grateful, blessed, in awe of what God is doing.

We have experienced all of these feelings and so much more!

Here's a little snippet from my journal during our January trip to Uganda….

{January 14th, 2012: …but seeing how loved we are, through the financial support, calls, emails, letters and gifts was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I will need to pull this journal out if I ever again feel lonely or without friends. God is so very very good. }

From day 1 Wes and I have been amazed over and over again by how God has used YOU to bless us. Thank you just doesn't seem like enough.

Ephesians 4:15-16 "Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body so that is builds itself up in love."

Much much love.

Our Storia

One way we have been especially overwhelmed during our build up to Uganda is through God's use of our friends. Like the Davis family's t-shirt fundraiser project, here is another example…

Some amazing friends of our have started a new company

{Mia Storia}

Their mission is to help families preserve their stories for future generations as well as to use their gifts to support charitable organizations, including our favorite .org, African Children's Mission. Our family was honored (and a little terrified) to be one of their first projects.

I think we can all agree that movie stars everywhere can breathe a collective sigh of relief that Wes & I will not be stealing their jobs any time soon!

Our kids & dog however…wow, the camera loves them! :)

Click here to watch The Wilbanks Storia!

Red Dirt

Photo Credit Heidi Angel

It's amazing what little things can impact you when you've been to another country or another culture in what seems like {another life}.

{FEET} can be pretty gross. As much as I love

getting pedicures, I don't think I could handle that job…touching strangers' dirty, icky feet hour after hour, all day long. My sisters all have crazy foot aversion syndrome (I just made that particular syndrome up but it adequately describes how they feel about feet!) and can't stand to look at, touch or talk about feet. As a matter of fact, if any of them are reading this they are probably already cringing and hoping I change the subject real soon!

Sorry Ks, but hang with me…

The Bible talks a lot about feet…there are verses "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" Roman 10:15B, stories of Mary washing Jesus' feet in the book of John chapter 12, Jesus washing his disciples' feet and tons of other references, Jesus telling the disciples to "shake off the dust from your feet" when they aren't received in a village (Luke 9:5, Matthew 10:14, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:11), Ruth laying at Boaz's feet wishing for him to redeem her (Ruth 3:14), I could list tons…{feet}, and their parts, are mentioned more than 300 times in the bible.

What is it with feet?

In the verses above it isn't difficult to see how the feet symbolize people, our souls and our true selves as God sees us.

{But feet are dirty, dusty, sometimes ugly looking things…

yet God calls them beautiful, clean, swift, well lit, secure, He sets them upon a rock.}

But feet are also one of our most unprotected & at risk body parts. The U.S. military places a great deal of importance on taking care of your feet. The Marine's Officer Candidate School even has foot care spelled out in their daily schedules.

In Ephesians, Paul tells Christians to put on the "armor of God" and that our feet should be clothed in the gospel Ephesians 16:5. Prepared in this way, we are charged to use our feet to take the gospel "to all creation". Mark 16:15

{Without shoes we open our bodies to all kinds of infection, disease, foreign bodies & injuries that could lead to illness and even death.}

Photo Credit (and Mzungu foot!) Heidi Angel

Before we left for Uganda in January I spent a lot of time researching & finding the perfect shoes for this trip. I knew I didn't want to be clomping around in heavy tennis shoes & socks in the African heat, but I also knew it was important to wear closed toe shoes to protect my feet from injury so flip flops were out. I finally found the perfect shoes, a pair of Mary Jane style slingback Keen's that were even 50% off (being that it was Christmas time & all) & I quickly bought them, excited about my

perfect Uganda shoes!

There's a quote in a well known movie about the color of the dirt coming from all of the blood that has been spilled in Africa.

I believe it.

In Uganda the dirt is {red}, like RED red.

As I walked and biked and rode and walked and walked miles and miles and miles in my new shoes over the next two weeks, they quickly changed from a goldenrod yellow color to a pinkish red. At the end of every day I actually thought I had tan lines from my shoes until I would shower and realize that my tan lines washed away.

My feet were just colored by the red dirt!

When I got home I developed a love/hate relationship with those shoes.

They still had that red Ugandan dirt clinging to them and every time I'd wear them I would sadly watch a little more of the dirt fall away…but every time I wore them a little of the dirt would be on me and would remind me that I still carried Uganda with me.

I guess it's like those people that take little glass bottles to the beach to scoop up some sand…or buy the bottles in the little knick knacky shops found in every touristy beach locale…or give the perfect gift of a little glass vase of Alabama dirt to a sweet sister moving to Florida.

Even my friend at Ekubo Ministries in Uganda wrote about the red dirt coming off of her shoes when she first came back from Uganda & how heartbreaking it was for her.

{We love the idea of taking a little piece of a special place back with us.}

When you are in a place with such heartbreak, poverty & lostness as we see in Uganda, it is difficult to come home and reconcile

what you have seen & what you have experienced & who you are there

to what you see, experience and are home in the states.

As I watched my shoes get cleaner and cleaner, I felt myself slipping further and further back into my old life…my life B.U. {Before Uganda}.

The problem is that I don't want that old life. I don't want to forget the amazing friends I made there, or the amount of need that I know exists. I don't want to lose the memory of the hopelessness that is evident on the faces of those that are lost, or the joy in the eyes of those that are not.

I want to live over and over again, every single day, the lessons that God taught me in those two weeks, even if it makes my heart hurt to do so.

Unlike the Jewish tradition of shaking the tainted Gentile dust out of their cloaks, or even the beautiful picture of Jesus washing the road dust off of the disciples' feet, I want to gather all of the red Ugandan dust I can and hold onto its real, tangible, physical presence.

But it's so easy to slip back into comfort-land…so easy to forget that there are mothers ignoring their expanding bellies because the infant mortality rate is so high, and they don't want to get too attached in case they should lose their little babies…to forget there are women, men and children fighting for their lives due to a disease whose cure costs a measly $7….to forget there are seven little bits of my heart waiting to cry out "hallo Malicia!" as I come to hug them & play with them & learn Luganda from them…to forget

there are people in this world who have never heard

of the saving love of Jesus Christ,

that they have been set free from sin through

His death and resurrection and that

THE God of the universe is working

now and in the future for their good and His glory.

A little red dirt helps me to remember the gospel.

{Without the gospel our souls are left vulnerable to infection, sin and death.}

Photo Credit Heidi Angel

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved" Ephesians 2:4-5