A Love Story – Corvallis, Oregon
Mark and Jinger are a hard-working, dedicated couple. Mark was working diligently to complete a degree in business, while Jinger worked as a system's analyst until she was laid off four months after the birth of their first child. With her job also went their family's health insurance.
It wasn't until a few months after Dylan's very difficult delivery that they began to realize he had been severely affected by the lack of oxygen he had experienced during birth. The months that followed revealed that Dylan had suffered a significant loss of vision and brain damage resulting in severe impediment of his motor skills. When he was 1 ½ years old, Mark and Jinger were told that Dylan had cerebral palsy and would likely never walk.
Shock, anger, fear, and panic are all natural responses to such difficult news, but Mark and Jinger did not linger there for long. In spite of their increasing financial difficulties, they attended a children's rehabilitation and development institute devoted to helping brain-injured children through an intensive home therapy program. The program included a process called patterning, which trains the brain to use unresponsive muscles. They completed the initial training by drawing from a home equity credit line and returned home to begin Dylan's daily therapy. Over the next 1 ½ years, they returned to the institute three times to learn new therapies and adjust their program.
Patterning requires the help of three people for each 1 ½ hour session, seven days a week. A family member temporarily filled in as the third person, and within two weeks Dylan began to crawl. With costly health insurance, co-pays, and medications draining their finances, they had no way to pay a regular helper to assist with Dylan's therapy. Jinger began calling every service agency she could find. None could help, but one recommended calling Love INC of Benton County, in Corvallis, Oregon. "Mark and Jinger had a big, ongoing need," said Wilma VanSchelven, Love INC executive director. "But how could we let this little boy and his parents down?" The Love INC Clearinghouse volunteers began calling churches for volunteers. Within a month every slot was filled with, not one, but two volunteers. Remarkably, two of the couples that God provided already had patterning therapy training. With this help, Mark could continue working on his degree.
Mark and Jinger have experienced God's love through the Body of Christ. "Our resources had run out," said Jinger. "All of these people, who are not related to us in any way, they loved us. They loved Dylan." And they share in celebrating the miracle of Dylan's amazing progress toward walking.