Hello, we're still here.

Hello everyone. Just a quick note to say we're still alive and kicking.

School is going pretty well, and last week we both survivied our first ever experience with parent-teacher conferences. cindy's were definately much harder than mine, due to an ongoing behavioral issue is one of her boys that adversely affects a great deal of the rest of the class. It wasn't easy, but we got through. The week before that we were trying to get through our first-ever experience with report cards. wow. what an experience. but we survived that too!

i've been encouraged recently by the occurrance of several conversations during the day in class that have been true spiritual moments of revelation of the gospel. it's pretty cool to (right in the middle of math or science or english or reading) be able to explain the Book of Life and Christ's blood covering all our sin when God judges us. it's also cool to be able to ask every morning and afternoon "would anyone like to pray or shall i?" sigh. prayer in school. neat. and i've had four different kids volunteer to pray so far. and offer prayer requests.

on friday, i shared a prayer request with them, and we talked about death, and salvation and how people grieve and say goodbye. my prayer request was for my family, and for me, because my dad's cousin (Mike Ramer) died unexpectedly this week. they had sort of "met" Mike because they'd seen a picture he'd taken of me and cindy and Dad outside of Soldier Field in Chicago. Mike came with us last November to the Bears/Broncos game. It helped me get through the day, being able to share about my feelings of sadness and anger and feeling like i can't be there to be with the family, and then having an eight-year-old pray for our class, for us to have a good day, and for God to "protect Miss Leinbach's family and also Mike who died and believed in you". For the full story of my thoughts on the day of Mike's death being discovered, please read my last blog entry at http://www.linebacker.com/ or click on the link to "Life of Leinbacker" on the right.

Please pray for the Leinbach and Ramer families, especially Mike's siblings: Janet, Doris, and Jim and his nieces and nephews and their children. also for my grandparents, who have lost a niece or nephew to death for the first time. The younger generation is not supposed to die before their elders, ya know?

Thanks for all your prayers. we love and miss you all. a lot. God bless.

Even the moon looks different!?!

The moon is different. Well, it looks different. It's, like, sorta sideways. There's no man in the moon unless you tilt your head sidways. (we tried it...) why? well, last friday night i woke up at 1:23 and was up until 5 a.m. due to intestinal unrest. So, i logged on and did a search for Southern Hemisphere star charts and why the moon looks different. Below is a link that shows the differences in what the moon looks like very well. You should click on the minus sign under the "speed" button on the bottom because it loads with the sun and the moon just whizzing by...

http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/applets/equatorialmoon/equatorialmoon.html

make sure you change the location to the equator and then to about 13 degrees south, because that's where Lima's at...

it's all about location location location!
Here's an even simpler picture, and it uses happy little moose to show you!
http://www.wundermoosen.com/WunderMoosenWeb-why-southern-hemiphere-moon-phases-are-different.aspx

now that our astronomy lesson is over, please pray this week for both cindy and i in our mental and physical health. the seasons are changing (winter has started, meaning it's not warm anymore, it's acutally chilly all day) and colds are going around. and, as i noted in teh first paragraph, i've been dealing iwth intestinal unease since early Saturday morning, continuing to today. Cindy was feeling better after a virus last monday and tuesday, but then this afternoon suddenly (and i mean SUDDENLY) became violently ill at school, vomiting and running to the bathroom. This is the last week of the first quarter, so student evaluations and report card grades are due, and this is the first time either of us have ever done anything like this, so it's a tad bit stressful to begin with, not to mention when you feel so horrible. When we were finally able to walk the three blocks home from school (it took about and hour and a half after her initial attack before she was NOT in so much pain and could walk home), cindy went straight to bed. i went straight to the restroom myself. ah, the loveliness of new and exotic bugs.

We are realizing more and more each day that this really is a case of "I can't do this, but God in me can." Our prayer is that we can stay connected to God and allow his spirit to do that work and give us strength and discipline.

Speaking of discipline, i've got lesson plans to finish! see you later! love you all!
-emily

Pictures here!

Go to www.picasaweb.google.com/leinbacker for some great pics of our new life in Peru. Also, a few notes have been added to the individual blogs we both have; see the links at right or click on http://www.leinbacker.com/ and http://www.zeeblebop.com/ for the scoop.

We miss you all and know that we will only start missing you more as time continues and it sinks in that we're not going to see you all for many more months. So far, it doesn't feel much different than the longer stretches of living in Chicago without a visit to Indiana. As the weeks continue here in Lima, we know we will start to actually feel the separation in a very keen way.

We're still working on the Vonage phone. Please pray about that. BUT you can call and leave messages. Email one of us for the number(s) if you don't have them. We LOVE getting the messages!!!

I have added my own blogger account name as an author to this blog, so you should see that this was posted by "mle" down at the bottom. Anytime you see that, it means that I am posting. (Oh, in case you couldn't tell, "I" am Emily.)

It's 8:10 and I haven't been home from school yet, so i'm going to pack up and go home now.

With much thanks for your prayers and much love to you all,
mle