To Sing Frogs Chapter 41b

Mike’s missionary service would draw to a close in May. Amy and I decided that rather than letting him travel home alone, we wanted to pick him up. We would take Sarah with us, let her visit with Julia, and then we could spend some time getting to know her family. I was in the middle of trying to arrange the plans in February when I called Amy from work.

“It’s not enough.”

“What?”

“Sarah and Julia together in Spain; it’s not enough.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Marina needs to be there. I’ll call Anya and have her contact Natalia. We’ll bring Marina and her parents. I’ll see if Anya can come to translate.”

It took some convincing. Marina’s parents didn’t want us to pay for such a trip. They finally relented when I explained that this was a gift we could all give to our daughters. This was something that each of them had secretly wished for since the day Sarah left the orphanage.

Bill Jenson’s son, Brent, had been my friend since childhood. He now worked at one of Utah’s biggest travel agencies. Travel coordination between Mike, us, Marina’s family, and Anya would be very involved. I also wanted help finding the perfect villa where we could all stay together. I asked Brent for assistance and he put me in touch with Murielle, a travel agent with tons of experience doing complicated itineraries. I told her our story. I explained what I wanted. She went to work.

A week later Murielle’s sweet voice and cute little French accent greeted me as I picked up the phone. “I sink I haf found your vílla,” she said excitedly. “Eet ees… quite romantíque. I sink it feets nicely weet your story.”

“Romantic, huh?” How quaint.

“Yes. Very romantíque. Zee vílla was once part of zee ranch zat was used to breed bulls for zee bull fíghting. Zey call eet ‘Vílla of zee Flowers.’ Eet ees een a small víllage called Cantarranas. Zee owner told me zee name of zee víllage means ‘Singing Frogs’.”

“Cantar ranas means ‘to sing frogs’.”

“You speak Spanísh?”

“No. I speak Portuguese. It’s the same thing only different.”

“But ‘to sing frogs’ makes no sense.”

“Maybe there’s something that’s lost in translation. Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe it doesn’t make sense. I’m becoming more and more convinced that some things aren’t supposed to.”

Within days we had secured the villa and our airline tickets.

 

 

“Natalia says they can’t go to Spain,” Anya told me at the end of April. “Her sister lives in Kyrgyzstan. Have you heard about it?”

Kyrgyzstan had been teetering on the edge of civil war for a couple of weeks. “Yeah, I’ve heard.”

“She says the government there has taken everyone’s passports so they can’t leave. They are hoping the situation might change and there might be even a small opening to extract the people who are waiting for a chance to get out. Natalia says she and her husband need to be there in case they can help her sister.”

“Sure. Of course. Family first. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Please thank her for considering the trip and ask her to keep us informed about her sister. Tell Marina we love her and miss her.”

Several days later the phone rang again. It was Anya. “Hi John. Natalia just called me. Marina was heartbroken when she was told that they couldn’t go to Spain. Natalia couldn’t bear to see her in such a state so she talked to her daughter, Yana. Yana has agreed to take time off work to escort Marina to Spain if it’s all right with you. Yana lives in St. Petersburg and Natalia said she would let me take Marina to Moscow where we could meet Yana. Then we could all go together from there. What do you think?”

I wanted to scream yippee! But it’s kind of not my style. Murielle made the travel changes.

 

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