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.