Special needs

The joy of my school year has been one little boy. He is severely disabled but because of strict privacy laws in Manitoba I have hesitated to blog about him. But he is such a big part of my life right now that his name rolls off my tongue that Ryan, Kayla or Scott. Every once in awhile a student "gets in." That means, they get into my heart. I truly love kids and have real affection for the students I work with or help plan for. But with these special needs kids, sometimes it goes deeper than that. And that is how it is with him. His parents are wonderful and I am in awe of the life they have maintained with the intense therapy he requires and the stress he brings. But the greatest thing is that the work we are doing at school - and its a lot - is making a difference in the family's life. He is making huge gains in just being able to live in a community.

He is also teaching us a lot. Once a month we have something called Home Groups where we mix up the students and have a multi grade time of devotions and sharing. My group was laughing at some of the equipment we have for this little guy so I started to tell them about why we needed it and a little bit more about him. They all know who he is and were open and caring when asking questions. I threw out the suggested lesson plan and spent the 20 minutes on this. When it was over and we were getting ready to go to the gym for singing, a boy from Grade 2 who makes you smile because he is Dennis the Menace-like said, "It is a really good thing that >>>> is at our school."

Yeah, it is.