Stories from our trip - Episode 1: The One Where Everyone Cried

I thought I would periodically share some stories from our trip here. I really have no plans or intentions with these except to share whatever stories come to mind so you can share in our experience with us! So here is the first of, hopefully, many…

Mary Daniel's cousin Cheri was part of our team in January. I believe she is from North Carolina but she flew into Atlanta to meet up with Wayne and Mary and came over to Uganda with them and another team member, Beccah.

Cheri is such a sweet woman but was always very quiet and a little reserved. She isn't the type of person to walk up to someone and start a conversation but is very friendly to everyone she meets. Cheri began sponsoring a little girl through ACM some time ago, but because of some mix-up, had not gotten any information about her for a while. After asking around, Mary was told that Cheri's sponsored daughter had moved to a different school and they were having trouble finding her. Cheri was resigned to knowing that her money was going to help her girl get to school, have uniforms, pay for her supplies and books, pay any medical expenses she might have and ensure she has a good meal each day and gave up hope of getting to see her girl. {all with $300, for a YEAR! Crazy, right?!?}

{when someone comes to the ranch that is sponsoring a child through ACM, a great deal of effort is made to try to allow the sponsor to meet their sponsored child in person}

While many people really enjoy going on home visits while in Uganda, Cheri just wasn't feeling comfortable going on them. I'm not sure what specifically made her uncomfortable but it was my understanding that she felt like she had trouble starting conversations with the families we would visit and was worried that she was imposing on them. {the opposite is actually true, the people in Uganda view receiving visitors as an honor and hospitality is a very important aspect of their culture, they also, like most people, love just having someone to talk to and share their day with! Bonus for me, who, now this might be a shock…loves to talk! :) } So for a couple days Cheri decided not to go on the home visits, and instead found other activities to be involved in. After spending some time talking to Mary and better understanding what these home visits mean to the Ugandans, Cheri finally decided to give home visits another try.

This particular day we were going to a village that was farther away from the ranch than any we had visited to this point. It was probably about 10-15 miles away, all uphill on very bad roads. The more remote a village is, the worse the roads are…even the good roads have potholes as big as a car! So you can imagine this road was really rough!! We, thankfully, made this trip in the ACM truck, but the children's ministry staff at ACM that are assigned to this village, Johnstone and Heziron, usually make this trip on bicycles! I'm sure it must take them hours to get to the first home but as we arrived we quickly learned that Johnstone and Heziron know every single ACM child in the village by name, they know their stories and what school they are attending. {I never did really figure out the school districting stuff. I think that there isn't much governmental or organizational control over who goes to which school. It seems that if you can pay your school fees, can get to the school and there is room for you, you can go to any school. We heard many stories of families trying to send their children to better schools only to get there and find out there wasn't room for them.}

One thing about this trip that really made an impact on both Cheri and I was how obvious it was that the ACM children's ministry staff really cared about each and every one of these children. Maybe it was because we are so used to the men in our culture being more emotionally reserved or the fact that we are used to hearing so much about absentee fathers, but the loving way Johnstone and Heziron spoke to the kids, helped them clean their faces and hands, soothed those that cried {the younger children especially sometimes get scared when they see these strange looking white people!} and just listened to them was beautiful and incredibly moving. I cannot say enough about these amazing men!

After visiting several families, we were driving to the next home when Heziron suddenly yelled to stop the truck near the village's common area. He was excitedly yelling in Luganda and Cheri and I had no idea what he was saying or what was going on. Johnstone started translating for us…"She's there! Right there! Your daughter is right there!" Everyone started to pile out of the truck as it dawned on us what they were talking about…Cheri's sponsored daughter had been found!!!

Randomly driving down the road, in a village she wasn't supposed to be in, Heziron spotted her precious face in a crowd of people and immediately called to her. It took only a few seconds of translating to explain to the little girl and her father who Cheri was…I'm pretty sure Cheri and I were already crying but if not, her father's reaction did us all in! He immediately went from confused and hesitant to overwhelmed and overjoyed as he thanked Cheri for sponsoring his little girl, raised his hands to God to thank him for sending Cheri, thanked Heziron for introducing them and even thanked me for…being there I guess? :) Cheri introduced herself to her sweet girl and she said something back in Luganda. Heziron translated that she was asking if she could give Cheri a hug. {The Ugandan people are extremely kind and loving but VERY reserved, the fact that this precious girl spoke up at all amongst adults was surprising, the fact that she asked to physically show her love and gratitude with a hug was shocking!}

At this point none of us could keep from crying. {I can't even write this without crying! ;)}

So there we are randomly standing in the middle of the road all crying and praising God for arranging this meeting! I'm sure from the looks of the locals that were watching us, they all thought we were all crazy!

Then her father started telling us a little bit about her story…

He told us how the girl, probably around 9 or 10 years old, had lost her mother and how hard it was for him to take care of her by himself

{I'm assuming she had brothers and sisters as well, it is very unusual in Uganda to only have one child. Actually the average, AVERAGE, number of children a Ugandan woman has in her lifetime is 7. AVERAGE…SEVEN!} .

He introduced us to the woman in this village that had agreed to take the girl into her home so that this sweet girl could get to the school that I'm presuming is better than the school she was attending before…or maybe her old school didn't have room for her, I'm not clear on the details but was clear was that this was extremely hard for her father to do. The pain in his face over the uncertainty of their future was evident. He spoke of how he had worked hard to get her to this village to live with this woman {probably a relative of the girl's mother} and how he was trying so hard to get together money to pay for her school, her uniforms and her books when he found out she had been sponsored. I really wish I was a better writer and could better articulate what this meant to him and his daughter. I don't think I will ever in my life forget the looks of joy on their faces, not only of getting the news that she would indeed be able to continue her education, they were definitely excited about that, but the sheer overwhelming joy they had in being able to thank the person that made it possible, face to face. It was a moment I will never forget!

As soon as we jumped out of the truck and understood what was happening, I started taking pictures. The picture I've attached is when Cheri and her sponsored daughter first met. {After snapping a few pics with my camera I grabbed Cheri's and took a ton more!}

I hope you enjoyed getting to know a learn a little about what we experienced on our trip. I will try to do more in the coming weeks and months and hopefully I won't cry through all of them! haha! :)

Much love,

Alicia

Back in the Ham!

Hello everyone,

I pray you are all doing well! I'm happy to say that Alicia and I arrived safely in Birmingham Sunday evening Jan.29.

I want to start this update by thanking you all for your love, prayers, and support. Without it our trip would not have been possible. Alicia and I feel truly blessed to have such an awesome support group willing to come beside of us and to go on mission with us. It has been our honor to represent you in the mission field.

Our trip went GREAT!! God continues to confirm his call on our family to serve with ACM on the ground in Uganda. Because of this, we will faithfully move forward with the next step in this process: committing to a 3 month stay with the whole family. We hope to be back in the field the summer of 2013.

In the coming updates I will be sharing stories from our trip and the impact they had and are having on Alicia and I (we are still processing it all ourselves). I will say this though, in the days leading up to our departure from the ranch Alicia and I both kept saying to each other how we wished we had more time and how we wished we could stay longer.

On this trip God answered a major prayer request by opening our eyes to many possible areas of service. One area we are exploring is teaching some form of introduction to basic electricity & maintenance classes. I will write more about this idea in coming updates.

Also in the coming updates I hope to use this community of believers as a sounding board for ideas. I will be asking for your feedback on the best ways to go about accomplishing the goals that we and the directors of ACM set for our trip and also asking to be held accountable for meeting those goals.

Prayer Request

1. For the protection of all those serving on the ranch

2. For continued confirmation

3. For mission partners

4. For family members' hearts to soften to the idea of our family working with ACM

5. For safe travel home for Heidi Angel (leaving the ranch this weekend) for Wayne and Mary (leaving in March) and for Patrick and Heather day (Also leaving in March)

Thank you once again,

Wes & Alicia Wilbanks

Getting Ready to Fly!

Hey guys,

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. I wanted to send out a quick update before Alicia and I leave (this Sat!!!).

Things around the Wilbanks house have been a little hectic, to say the least, these last few days. I thought getting a team ready for a trip to the ranch was stressful, but after planing out the schedules of our three kids to follow while we are gone, I now realize that planning a trip over seas for 14 adults is nothing! The funny thing is I'm not the one doing the planning, Alicia is...and this crazy schedule, that she has documented in "spread sheet form" for my parents & my in-laws who will have the kids while we are gone, is the same schedule that she manages every day flawlessly. I just want to say thanks to my awesome wife, Alicia you are a scheduling house managing mother/wife wizard and I'm in awe of you right now!!

I really don't have a whole lot to update you on. Alicia and I will be departing for Uganda this Saturday at 12:50 P.M. We are both super excited and I can't wait for Alicia to finally see the place that she has only heard about and seen through the pics that other teams have taken.

I read a mini book the other day written by K.P. Yohannan the book was titled "The Beauty Of Christ Through Brokenness". I'm attaching a copy of this book with this email, if you get a chance read it. I promise it is well worth the time.

We appreciate all the prayers you guys have made on our behalf. They have been felt....

Please pray for God to open our eyes to his will for our family.

Please pray that God would continue to humble us so that when we serve we do so with broken hearts hopelessly dependent upon God.

Please pray for the health and safety of our family while we are gone.

Please pray for safe travel for Alicia and I and all that will be joining us on this trip.

Please pray for the missionaries in the field That we will be aiding. Pray that our presence there will not be a burden to them but something God can use to uplift and renew their spirits.

I hope to have much more to write you all when we return on the 29th!

Thank you so much for your love and support!!

God Bless

Wes

The Beauty of Christ Through Brokenness

Challenges…or…?

The dictionary defines a {challenge} as

"a task or situation that tests someone's ability".

I think that definition totally applies to what our family has been facing over the last year.

When we first began this blog, almost a year ago, we did so in response to our feeling that God was calling us to serve Him in Uganda. Since then

we have felt under attack many times.

house flooding

major roof damage

car accidents saw accidents

injuries illness

seizures surgeries

even death… many deaths

We have seen all of this and more in the last 11 months.

Through each of these {challenges} we have tried to see them as God sees them, we've tried to focus on how He can be glorified through these things, we've tried to seek Him first. But sometimes it is so very hard to do. We have to remind ourselves to look to God FIRST, we have to look to His WORD to find wisdom, and we have to spend time with HIM to know His will and direction. The more {challenges} we face, the more we have turned to Him but I have to

admit that sometimes it's not until the hardship has passed. This is when we have one of those "slap yourself in the forehead" kind of moments when we can't believe we tried to do it on our own.

Again.

The dictionary defines a {challenge} as

"a task or situation that tests someone's ability".

These {challenges} have definitely tested our ability. They've tested our ability to look to God for answers instead of ourselves or our peers or our experts. Our ability to let go and give God control of ourselves, of our finances, or our children, our ability to trust Him with everything. Our ability to really truly believe in God's awesome authority.

And we know. We know these {challenges} have been allowed to come upon us so that we can grow, so that we can be sharpened in the fire, so that we can show empathy to those that are going through similar {challenges}. We know that they have a reason and we know He can use them for GOOD because we believe in Him and we are called to His purpose.

As we prepare to leave for Uganda in less than 7 weeks, we do so knowing there will be even more challenges. Only we are now trying to think of them as {opportunities}…to grow, to care for others ,to see God's GLORY.

Our Son

I wanted send out a quick update on how everything is going for the Wilbanks family...

Up until two weeks ago everything had been going pretty smoothly for the whole family, I had finally gotten the house put back together from all the flooding that occurred last March, the kids and Alicia had each started back to school and we all had begun to get back into a normal schedule, if there is such a thing. Alicia and I had begun our fundraising for our January trip to Uganda, and with a little less than 5 months to go before we left, our excitement had started to build. But as excited as we were/are for our upcoming trip to the ranch we were even more excited for a special anniversary that was coming up on Friday, September 23rd.

The 23rd of September would have been a year since Wyatt had experienced a seizure. (For those of you who didn't know, Wyatt was diagnosed with Epilepsy just before his 6th birthday and has been on medication for over two years to control them.) We already had his yearly check up with his neurologist scheduled for the following Wednesday where he had planned to started weaning Wyatt off his seizures medications. For us this would have been a HUGE answered prayer!! Wyatt and his medical condition have been our biggest concern since starting this Ugandan journey. With his year anniversary of being seizure free coming up Alicia and I had let ourselves start to believe that this period in his life was coming to an end and maybe even that God was going to grant us this request for being so willing to follow him into the mission field. The phone call that Alicia received on Tuesday, September 20th at 11:15, just three days before Wyatt's big anniversary, would put all those hopes/illusions to a screaming halt.

The call was from the school nurse to inform us that Wyatt was in the middle of a seizure in his classroom and in fact had been having one for about 15 minutes and was not coming out of it. There's a joke about how slow city vehicles seem to just drive around our city, and that the drivers of those vehicles are never in a hurry to go anywhere and how bad it is to get stuck behind one. But when I got the call that no father every wants to get from a wife with the kind of panic that can only mean one thing in her voice, I got in my city truck and turned a 20 min drive into a 5 min drive. I got to the school first and found Wyatt on the floor of his class room, with the school nurse and his teacher on their knees around him, still in a seizure. The shaking, drooling, eyes rolling back in his head had all stopped by the time I walked in the room. The look on the nurse's and teacher's faces was enough to let me know it had been a bad one. They were truly rattled. I picked Wyatt's limp body up off the floor and as I did he looked up at me to acknowledge my presence in the room but his brain wouldn't allow him to put any words together. I sat down in a chair and began to rock him until Alicia got there. I kept praying that he would be the same kid after the event that he was before it. The types of seizures Wyatt has are the types that you can have and that you may never come out of or when you do, you might not be the same when its over. So with every seizure Alicia and I hold our breath and pray that God will bring our little buddy back to us. Over the next week Wyatt would have three other much smaller seizures even after his Dr. had upped his meds. We now have scheduled him for a 24 hour EEG to hopefully find out why after 11 months of no seizures he has had so many, when he didn't even have this many so close together before going on medication.

As of right now his medications seem to have done the trick and I'm happy to say Wyatt has been 1 weeks seizure free (and like parents of newborns, we start counting the days and weeks again). Now 1 week past all the events I find myself thanking God for allowing all this to happen when it did and not when Alicia and I were 3 thousand miles away. I can't imagine how hard that call would have been to get if we would have received it in Uganda and not 20 min. away. It has also made both of so thankful for the gift of having children and for the time God gives us with each of them. It reminds us of how precious that time is. God never promises us a tomorrow only that he will always be with us.

We want to thank you all for your love and support.

Prayer Request:

1. That God would be magnified through the life we live

2. That ACM feeding program would be brought back to the levels before the cuts. And that it would even be expanded.

3. That God would bring the right people along beside ACM to aid in the work they are doing in Uganda.

4. That our family will remain commeted to finding Gods will for our lives.

5. For the saftey and health of our family while were away.

6. That God will make his will known to Alicia and I while on this trip.

7. That the funds we still have left to raise for our trip will come in and come in quickly so we can purchase our airfaire at a cheaper rate.

God bless you all

The Wilbanks family

Answered Prayers

Hello everyone,


Sorry it has taken me so long to get an update out, two days after I arrived home from my last trip all the plumbing in my house decided to die. It started with my down stairs den flooding for the fourth time, after installing a extra sump pump in a crawl space too small to stand up in and tearing out the carpet in our den for the fourth time, the den flooded yet again.. After having my septic tank pumped out I find out that all my fill lines are no good, so now I have back yard that looks like a big dug out mud pit. I've replaced all the plumbing pipes on the out side of my house going to the tank and all the pipes in the tank (not a fun experience I might add). All I have left to do is dig up my old fill lines replace them plant some grass and remodel a den. All I need now is the time to do it. As someone who has to have everything just a certain way almost to the point of OCD, I feel like God is taking this opportunity to teach me to be content in the midst of chaos. And that some days I will work all day at something and feel as if I accomplished nothing. I think he's telling me not to focus on the days and days of work I still have left to do and to only focus on this day and the work God would have me do today. Also just to be thankfull that I have house to work on and the abilty to do so. It is taking time to ajust but I'm starting to get ok with the Idea that my house and yard are going to have to be in shambels for now and that I can't always take care of a problem or problems as soon as they come up. It's funny but ever since Alicia and
I have started this journey we have tried to look at every situation that arises as a teaching tool that God is using to prepare us for a life in the mission field. It has made it easer to handle problems when we don't focus on the problem and keep our focus on what God is trying to show us. We still have moments of being totally overwhelmed especially for me over the last couple of weeks with everything going on with the house, but I have found in those moments when I feel like I can't catch my breath and am on the verge of a massive panic attack,
that God never fails to throw me a life line. For the last few weeks that life line has been my dad. He always seems to show up at just the right time to lend a helping hand to hold me up and encourage me so I can make it through whatever disaster I'm dealing with at the time. Both of my parents are such a blessing and I'm so thankful for them.


This last trip to the ranch was great, just to see all my African friends so soon after my last trip was awesome. Dad and I were able to get most of the work done that brought us back so soon. We even got to see one of the generators run off bio-gas. How cool is that!!! I wish I could say that God revealed his big plan and the work he would have my family and I to do while I was their but thats not the case. I left broken hearted the same as before wishing I didn't have to leave and wishing my family was already there with me. I guess the biggest thing
God has been teaching me through this whole process is patience. So for now we will continue to move forward with our plans of getting Alicia on the first team trip after she graduates, unless God opens the door for her to go sooner, then following that a 3 month stay with the whole family. Dad and I will began planning and organizing the next team trip which right now looks like will be Sept. 24th thru Oct. 8th. If anyone is interested in going just shoot me an E-mail.

Please continue to pray for our family. For wisdom for Alicia and I. For us to be patient and to wait on Gods timing. For our hearts to continue to be broken for the people he would have us to serve.

Before I go I want to share an answered prayer request that I just found out about last night. After I got home from my last trip Alicia made the comment about how she could not wait until she graduated so she could go with us on her first trip to Africa. And how she wished she could go sooner, but knew that would be impossible if she was going to graduate by next spring. I told her we should pray about it and ask God if it was his will for her to go sooner that he would provide away for that to happen. We prayed that night and the next morning I told her I wanted to share the prayer request with all of you, she asked me not to because it was a silly idea and that it
wasn't going to happen and that she didn't want to get her hopes up just for both of us to be disappointed. That morning I began to pray that God would show her that through him nothing was impossible. She found out Wednesday morning at school that she has got to do a 4 week interim term this January in order for her to graduate and that she can do that interim in Africa with ACM. All she has to do is write up an interim contract and get it approved. She e-mailed the lady in charge of the interim terms last night a rough draft interim contract
to see what she would say. It was about five minutes later that she responded and said "yes definitely yes". Though nothing is in stone yet it looks like Alicia and I will be able to make the trip to the ranch this coming January, needless to say we are both extremely excited to be able to go 8 months sooner than we anticipated an even more excited that God answered our prayer in such a big way.


Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. You have no idea how much it means to us.

Wes

Patience

This might come as a surprise to some of you…but I am not a very patient person!

I know, shocking right? :)

One day when Wes and I were dating, we were watching The Newlywed Game Show. One of the questions was "what is your spouse most lacking…brain cells, patience cells, or love cells".

Wes without hesitation shouted "patience cells!!".

I've come a long way since those days, twin girls will do that to a mother!

But I still have such a long way to go. I so often want things accomplished on my time, when I want them and how I want them.

I really have to focus on making myself stop and think about how this affects other people.

So with this {journey} I've felt God so often tell me

"stop. just wait. be patient."

And that is so hard…so very very hard. Because when I have something in my sites I go for it.

I'm all about research and planning and list making and weighing options…but once I've done that and have decided I'm gunning to accomplish it.

For whatever reason though, with Uganda, God is telling me to wait.

I want more than anything to spend my days pouring love into the children of Uganda…

the people of Uganda.

I want more than anything to spend my days pouring love and knowledge into my children.

I want more than anything to spend my days depending solely on my heavenly father.

I really want more than anything to rewind time by five, ten years and move to Uganda then.

Why did it take us so long to hear what our Father was telling us?

Why didn't we see what He wanted so long ago?

I don't know the answers to these questions but I know that we are never to old or too set in our ways to be used by God.

His timing is perfect

I know He has a plan for us

I can't wait to see what that is.

But for now I have to have {patience}...