A LONG 10 DAYS!

The title says "a long 10 days", but technically it's been eleven full days that Leif has been gone and I've been with the girls. He just called from the bus saying he'll be home any minute. HOORAY!!!


Leif's been in Thailand for a conference about sharing Christ in the Tibetan Buddhist world. I thought I'd blog a lot this past week with all of my extra time after the girls went to bed. Ha! The first couple of days went without a hitch. I had to go to the immigration office to finish up some things with our registration... no small feat with two little girls (pictured above outside)! But God was gracious and it went really fast (Leif had spent HOURS there the day before).



Then the next day Lena came over and taught me how to make Russian soup. The ladies at church take turns making lunch for everyone on Sundays, and it was my turn. Last time I made minestrone soup, but this time I decided I needed to learn how to do a typical Russian soup to expand my horizons (and be sure that people would like it). Anneka loved helping out and even began speaking little bits in Russian. I was so proud of her!



And then the next day, Anneka got a TERRIBLE cough! I was really worried, too, because in the night her lips were blue. I talked with a doctor in the States, and thankfully she was breathing okay, but it was scary (especially with Leif gone).

Anneka's cough got worse and worse and then she got a pretty high fever. She still had the remnants of her cold since Christmas, so I was worried about some sort of bacterial infection or pnemonia. My friend, Katia, encouraged me to call the ambulance on Tuesday night. In the States you only do that for extreme emergencies, and I think they pretty much always take you to the hospital. But here, if kids have fevers people don't take them outside (too cold) and the doctor comes to you. I was really afraid that they'd whisk Anneka away to the hospital and she'd be scared, but Katia assured me that they'd let me be with her. So anyways, we called the ambulance.

Katia and Rebecca came to be with me and both doctors were women and really nice. It turns out it wasn't pnemonia (as far as they could hear anyways) and they prescribed about 10 different things. I ran everything by our doctor in the States and he agreed with the antibiotic since Anneka had been sick for so long. He said that sometimes pnemonia will show up on a chest x-ray even when you can't hear it.

Anyways, one of the prescribed things was this blue stuff for under Anneka's nose. She wipes it so often that it gets red and raw, and the blue stuff is to protect it(see picture above). Anneka loved her mustache and was concerned when it started to wear off.

I have been up most of the night most of the nights (does that make since?) since Leif's been gone with one or the other girl. Anneka would often wake Ella up when she needed me, and it's been a viscious cycle. And now Ella and I are sick. =( And a few days into being sick, Anneka turned into a monster-like-girl. She's never been that naughty and it was really difficult... especially as se was still not feeling well and we're couped up in the apartment.

But the happy part about this whole story is that my worst fear with Leif being gone is that one of the girls (or all of us!) would be sick... and worst-worst case that I'd have to do something like call an ambulance! But now once it happened, my heart was flooded with peace. God showed me that he's present with me always and he didn't want me to live in fear of such things. He was gracious to give me just what I needed each day, even running on empty. And he provided wonderful people to show me His love and care in the midst of it. I'm so thankful!

And I'll be really thankful, too, to give Leif a BIG HUG in just a few minutes!!