I think I mentioned that I was a little concerned about some homeschooling friends, who only live about 20 minutes away from us but we hadn't heard anything for several months. I e-mailed and tried to telephone quite a few times after we got home a month ago, but no answer. I finally called a mutual friend, who updated me. This family had been basically ignored by the authorities since January 2004 (their oldest daughter was school-age as of autumn 2003), when they received a letter saying that their request was being "looked into". What exactly happened when, I don't know, but they were levied with fines totalling €2000 (US$2250), were being emotionally attacked by family, friends, and church (boy, does that sound familiar!), and the father finally had a nervous breakdown that landed him in the hospital. They immediately put their two school-aged children in the local regular public school, but it was so awful, they pulled them out again (after three days, I think--I'm not sure on that one) and put them in a public Catholic school (same thing we did last year), which is apparently somewhat better.

I'll update if I get more details, in the meantime, please pray for this family! I far too well understand where they are, both with the emotional exhaustion of having people you love and thought you could trust being totally against you, and the heartbreak of giving up your dreams (even if only temporarily) by putting the children in school in order to keep custody and a certain amount of sanity. It's not easy.