A Little Song

Anneka likes to sing. Here's one of her little songs. She doesn't, however, like it when I sing. Well, sometimes she does, but it has to be on her terms- the timing and song that she requests. If I just start singing, she usually says, "Nopie, Mama. Don't sing that song". And at night she always likes me to sing her a song, but she wants it to be about certain subject matters. Her favorite subject for me to sing about is boys. So I made up a "boy song" that Leif and I sing to her a lot about how Jesus loves boys and girls and everyone in the whole world. But sometimes she wants a song about cats or about Mama or Papa or men. She's a funny girl.

I'm feeling SO much better today. Still stuffy, but SO much better. Unfortunately, Leif is feeling worse again. This cold is CRAZY!! Anneka hasn't had any more symptoms since her morning of sneezing. She's as full of energy and fun as ever.

We got our drain fixed tonight! I'm SO happy. The reason Leif couldn't get the drain part off was because it was super-glued on. At first our landlord used Anneka's PLAYDOUGH to fix the drain. I overheard him talking with Leif and saying that it should be okay as long as we don't use hot water or that much water and I was like "WHAT?!", but then I realized that it was just a temporary fix before he could find the right parts. Thankfully, the store had them tonight, and the permanent parts are already in and the playdough is gone. I'm planning on doing mass laundry tonight before people come to do their laundry tomorrow.

Yesterday we got a call from our friend from the train station. She asked if Leif had her passport, as he'd used it on Sunday to register the American family who is here. He did- neither he nor she had noticed. He rushed off to get it to her, but unfortunately there wasn't enough time. She missed her train. I feel so badly about it. Here, she selflessly gave of so much time and energy and then she lost all of that money for her ticket. And it was for her job, too! She was responsible for taking a bunch of students to be interviewed at the embassy in Yekaterinburg in order to work in the States this summer. And now she's not with them!

I feel like lots of things like that have been happening lately. I definitely feel "hard pressed on every side". But I know that we are not "crushed". I pray that we can stand firm and draw our strength from Christ and not from anywhere else.