News from the lego farm

Getting back in the swing of things.....

Well, it is September, and time to get back at things full force. Where did the summer go? And where did my resolution to write every week go?? Seems they both disappeared down the same black hole that resides somewhere in my home.

I spent a busy summer, like most people I know. But this year had an added twist for us. Last December our son was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. For those unfamiliar with it, it is a part of the autism spectrum, but more specifically I like to think of it as the "pocket protector syndrome" because a lot of children with Asperger's remind me of the classroom "nerds" from the '80's when I was in school. Please accept my humblest aplogies and good wishes for those who actually are diagnosed with this syndrome, for I by no means intend to belittle the problems encountered by people whose brains are wired in this way.

I have been attempting to set up some Occupational Therapy for our son, because he has fine motor issues and what I think are sensory integration problems as well. Here in Ontario, we have a lovely health care system paid for with our tax dollars. It is accessible to everyone in the country as long as they have a health card from the province. I can use that health card all across our beautiful country, and never have to pay a cent for health care. It's great.

However, can anyone explain to me why getting health care, paid for by our Ministry of Health, would be contingent upon my child being registered with our local school board? Anyone? Buhler???

No, I thought not. And therein lies my dilemma. Because to get the therapies paid for by our government, I would have to register with our school board, something my husband and I choose not to do.(For those reading from the States, this is perfectly legal here in Ontario - we don't have to register our intent to homeschool if we don't want to, and the Education Act supports that interpretation of the law). Enter much anguish and mental gymnastics, as we debate back and forth what to do. After some fact finding phone calls, where we discovered that the average Occupational Therapist charges $90/hour for service, we made the decision to go ahead with an assessment, paying out of pocket. But with the intention that once we have our assessment, we will not have much to do with the therapist because we can't afford it.

And even the assessment would need to be put off until we could pull together enough funds.

Enter God.

This weekend, God answered our prayers in a most unexpected way. Here in Canada, if your child is diagnosed with a disability, you get some tax breaks at the federal level. Well, once we had our diagnosis, the accountant who helps us with our taxes made us aware of the tax laws. And we followed her directions to notify the government, and asked to have all our taxes reassessed, for the last 10 years. And there it stood, with us expecting a refund of a few thousand dollars.

On Saturday while I was doing some banking, I almost fell over in shock. The teller had handed me my deposit slip, with our updated bank balance. Only, the number was off from our records by several thousand dollars. When I asked, in a stunned way, what had been placed in our account, the teller informed me "it says electronic funds transfer from the government".

God is so good. Right when my husband and I had come to the conclusion that we would be obedient to not register our son with the school board, and instead find some other way to obtain the funds for his treatment, God had already prepared the money we would need. I am still stunned at the timing of this refund, and how God has met our need, even before we could begin to worry about how to meet it.

And that is an amazing way to start our school year - praising God for answered prayer and met needs. What a great reminder to me that if I continue in obedience to Him, God will, indeed, answer our prayers for our son.