We missed the 2011 adoption cut-off by 10 days. The Adoption Tax Credit is not “refundable” in 2012. This means we will not get it all in one big chunk. We will have to take the credit over the next few years. This makes the finances a little tighter but it does not diminish the joy of adoption in any way!

We have seen the hand of God working in this adoption. Thank you to all our friends and family who have been praying for us. We have sensed His favor and seen several small miracles along the way.

On the plane trip from Chicago to Hong Kong Linda and I did not get seats together. In fact we each got center seats across the plane from each other. I explained the situation to the lady who had the window seat and asked if she would be willing to trade with Linda. She was not willing to sit in a center seat for the 15 hour flight. (I was somewhat dismayed but I can completely understand that.)

I had tried a few other people sitting around but with no luck. Then a young Asian lady came to take the isle seat next to me. I again explained the situation and she graciously agreed to take Linda’s center seat on the other side and let Linda have her isle seat. Linda was so happy to be able to lean her head on my shoulder! God is good! God bless that young lady!

In Hong Kong we did some sight-seeing. For lunch we stopped at a small restaurant and ended up sitting next to a man and his son who were from Michigan. We talked a little and told them our story. They finished their meal, went inside to pay, and then we said good-bye. We really did not think much about meeting them. We finished a little later and I went in to pay. The manager explained that the man had already paid for our meal. We were shocked!! That has never happened to us before.

Next we took a train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. We had never ridden a train before and did not know that the seats were assigned. Our tickets were in Chinese so we could not fully read them. We got on the car and picked a seat that seemed like a good choice for us. We wanted to face forward. That was our biggest concern.

Many others started boarding and we soon realized that seats were assigned. We studied our tickets a little more and figured out that our seats we right there in the same row just on the other side of the car. So we simply got up and moved over.

Then another guy came and sat where we were sitting. A little later an Asian family came and quite gruffly let the fellow know that he was sitting in their seat. He had to get up and move. It may seem small but we were thankful that God had lead us to the right spot on the train before we got yelled at.

It truly is a miracle that the adoption was finalized on my birthday. Only our loving God could orchestrate that! As much as I wanted it to be final in 2011, we can see God’s perfect hand in the timing. I will say it again, there is truly no better birthday present!

The Federal Reserver Bank of Cleveland did a study titled, The Baby Boomers’ Mega-Inheritance—Myth or Reality? The study is dated in 2000 but I have to imagine that the numbers have not changed much in the last 10 years.

The study is an effort to see if inheritance could fill some of the gap that Social Security may leave in peoples later years. Since less than 2% get $100,000 or more, the conclusion seems to be that most people cannot rely on inheritance for income after retirement.

Retirees are one of the wealthiest segments of the U.S. population, and today’s retirees have more wealth than any previous generation’s. Some have conjectured that bequests out of this wealth will significantly boost the resources of the baby boomers—the next generation of retirees—bridging the gap between their retirement needs and resources. This Economic Commentary argues against such a view and explains why boomers have no alternative but to save for their own retirement.

The table below shows the percent of population in America that received an inheritance. It is broken down by the amount received.

My immediate question was, “why?” With all the opportunity and wealth available in America, why do we not leave some for the next generation?

The study gives several reasons:

• A good portion of wealth is “annuitized” which means it will be paid out the the current owner in annuity payments until death and then it is gone. These cannot be transfered.
• Baby-boomers have more children and so any inheritance is split up among more recipients.
• The baby-boomers are living longer and using up more of their wealth before death.
• Evidence shows that many boomer parents neither expect to leave significant bequests to their children nor believe it is important to do so.

I think this last reason is one of the most telling. It seems we do not place a high priority on leaving money for the next generation.

I can imagine that part of this is just the fact that it takes a lot of hard work to build up wealth. When you finally get there, you are simply ready to enjoy some of that by spending it on all the things you denied yourself for so long.

So should we be concerned about this? Is there something we are missing as families?

Thinking back through history, it seems like this pattern has not changed much over time. The really rich families build dynasties that pass wealth from generation to generation. Even in America we can see this with families like Rockefeller, Kennedy and Bush. But the average Joes, like me, do not spend a lot of time worrying about what will be left for the next generation.

Linda and I took Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University (FPU) class a couple years back. Now, I am facilitating a new FPU class in a couple of weeks. Beyond getting out of debt, one of Dave’s points in the class is to build wealth to a point that it changes your family tree.

This idea really captures my attention.

We have been working hard and, Lord willing, we will be debt free in just a few years. With that in mind, I can see how building significant wealth is actually possible. Enough wealth that there could be a decent amount left after we live to be 100 years old.

I hope to build the same knowledge into my children and help them manage money well. Then, if we can pass significant sums on to them, they can build on that and our family tree become stronger!

None of us can predict the future. There are so many things that can change it is extremely difficult to plan for the next generation, much less guarantee we will have any money left at the end of our lives.

But I still feel this is a worthwhile goal. I like the idea of building family wealth together with my children. Right now this is just a dream. I have a seven-year-old and a three-year-old. But I want to keep this dream alive and keep thinking about how to make it a reality.

This is one of main the reasons I am trying to learn so much about the stock market and investing. If I plan to be wealthy, I want to learn how to manage it well and keep it growing. (Join me in the inMessment Game and we can learn together.)

There really are a lot of issues in this topic. My mind goes off on a new thought every time I write a new line.

What do you think about leaving an inheritance? We would all love to get a significant amount. But then what would we do with it? Go on a cruse or buy a new car? Should we leave significant funds for our children? Or is it better for them to fend for themselves?

Linda and I have adopted two beautiful girls from China and we are in the process of adopting a boy. Last night, we watched Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy on PBS. This documentary gives a good view into the Chinese adoption process. We recognized several places that they went to. We were nodding our heads and saying, “been there, done that!”

• Separation
• Attachment
• Language
• Culture
• Special Needs

Linda noted that these are not easy or quick issues to deal with. Both our girls were younger when we adopted so we did not have some of the early issues shown in the video (The girl is 8-years-old). But we know that we will have lots of questions as the girls get older. And there will be different and deeper issues that come up over the years.

We are praying for God’s grace and His wisdom.

Synopsis (from PBS)

What is it like to be torn from your Chinese foster family, put on a plane with strangers and wake up in a new country, family and culture? Stephanie Wang-Breal’s Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy is the story of Fang Sui Yong, an 8-year-old orphan, and the Sadowskys, the Long Island Jewish family that travels to China to adopt her. Sui Yong is one of 70,000 Chinese children now being raised in the United States. Through her eyes, we witness her struggle with a new identity as she transforms from a timid child into someone that no one — neither her new family nor she — could have imagined. A co-production of American Documentary/POV and the Diverse Voices Project, presented in association with the Center for Asian American Media, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Here is the trailer for the movie:

Here are the links to watch the full movie:
Watch the Video
Read more about it on PBS

After watching, please leave me a comment and let me know what you thought about it.

In Part 1, I covered Monday through Wednesday of our Staycation. Here I am finally going to cover the last two days of our week of fun, close to home.

On Thursday our family all took a canoe trip for the day. We all went down to Mohican Adventures Canoe & Fun Center. It is about 2 hours from our house. Two friends also came along so we ended up with a total of 16 people. At twelve adults you get a group discount so it ended up costing us only $16 per person.

Linda and I and Sarah shared one canoe. Abby started out in another canoe with two of her older cousins. Later in the trip she joined us in our canoe. Sarah paddled most of the time while Linda sat back and got some sun. Of course this means that I ended up doing most of the rowing. (I am not bitter about it )

It was a warm day so the kids really liked getting out of the canoes and playing in the water. The water was not high so Abby and Sarah could stand up in most locations. You can see us trying to get Sarah back in our canoe here:

Here is Abby with the small paddle she borrowed from another cousin. Unfortunately we could only find one of these small ones. The three youngest all wanted to use it. When we go again we may spend a little more effort finding a few more small paddles.

The canoe trip was a lot of fun! There were a couple of places we stopped where they had rope swings. Several of he kids had a great time swinging out into the water. We took the 7 mile trip which should take about 2 hours. We ended up taking about 3 hours. It was fun and relaxing.

Here is the whole group after we got off the river.

After the canoeing we drove just down road to Mohican State Park and had lunch at a picnic pavilion there. After lunch we took a two mile hike through the woods in the park. We were all pretty worn out, especially the kids, by the end of the day. Then we drove back home.

On Friday, we decided to go down to Mansfield, OH. We have driven through Mansfield many times and we always talked about stopping and looking around some time.

The big thing we wanted to do there was ride the carousel. Mansfield is the home of Richland Carrousel Park which was built in 1991. This make it the first new, hand- carved carousel to be built and operated in the United States since the 1930′s.

I must say it truly is a beautiful carousel. Below is a collage of pictures that Linda put together.
(Click on the image to get a bigger view of it.)

Linda and I rode the first time with the girls and then they rode several more times by themselves. The girls always rode horses. I tried to get them on a panda bear but they would hear none of it. They even had rabbits you could ride, which is what I got on.

After the carousel we went and ate at Ed Pickens’ Cafe on Main. It is a very nice cafe with a lot of open space. The food was good too which is a plus.

After lunch we walked around downtown and window shopped in several of the antique shops. I spent 60 cents on a set of six old magazines. I figured I could sell them on eBay and make a few bucks. This turned into a big fiasco but I wont go into that here.

We found a small candy shop and stopped in and got the girls a treat. Abby had chocolate on a stick and Sarah got a bag of popcorn (she just loves popcorn).

So that was the last of our Staycation. We had a lot of fun and we didn’t have to go far from home or spend a lot of money. One day we will take a trip to Disney World with the children, and some day we will make it to Hawaii, but for now this was a great family vacation!

This Summer we decided to do a Staycation. I took the week off from my day-job but we did not want to have the expense of hotels and travel costs for a far off Vacation. We chose fun things to do close to home.

On Monday we started by bending the Staycation model a little. We drove to Idlewild in Pennsylvania. This is just a few hours from our home in Northern Ohio. We left at 6:30 AM and we got there a little before noon and stayed till they closed at 8:00 PM. Friends of ours who have also adopted two girls, went with us to Idlewild.

Idlewild is an awesome amusement park for younger children. Abby, our six-year-old, is 46 inches tall and Sarah, our three-year-old, is just 36 inches tall. Abby was tall enough to ride most of the rides by herself and Sarah could ride most if accompanied by an adult. Only two rides require the kids to be over 48 inches tall.

They also have Raccoon Lagoon which is especially for small children. Sarah was able to ride all the rides there by herself and she absolutely loved it! Abby and the friend’s girls with us also had a lot of fun in Raccoon Lagoon even though the rides were a little young for them.

After leaving Idlewild we drove two hours to West Virginia and stayed two nights with Linda’s aunt, Auntie Linda. We love hanging out with Auntie Linda and this saved us hotel costs for the two nights.

Auntie Linda owns a Cake Decorating business, “Cakes With A Personal Touch Plus.” Abby loves to watch them bake and decorate cakes. Sometimes she gets to help out a little. Then she talks about how she may start a cake business when she grows up.

We just hung out on Tuesday and had fun. We went to a park and played a little in the afternoon.

Auntie Linda had a friend over for dinner. We had a wonderful roast with potatoes and carrots. Then for desert we all went to Dairy Cream Corner and had lots of ice-cream.

The next day we drove 4.5 hours back home. We had borrowed my brother-in-law’s Garmin so that Linda could sleep on the trip without us getting lost. While it worked pretty well, Linda is a much better navigator. the rout the Garmin took us on probably took about 30 minutes longer than the way Linda is used to going.

Anyway, the extra time allowed us to almost finish Charlie and The Chocolate Factory on CD. We had borrowed it from the Library. I had never read the book. I was scared by the first part of the movie when I was a kid and never wanted to look at it again. But listening to it on CD helped me get into the story without being freaked out by the scary-clown-looking guy who plays Willy Wonka. I had never realized it was an allegory on raising children. Very interesting book and fun while we were in the car.

In Part 2 I will share what we did on Thursday and Friday of our Staycation.

This Guest Post is by Steven Shaw. Steven is happily married and a father of four. He is a graduate of Christ For The Nations Institute and is currently attending Southwestern Assemblies of God University. He recently wrote this letter for a close friend’s son who graduated High School and is leaving for college. You can see more of Steven’s writing on his blog, FromTheShawBrothers, co-authored with his brother Joel.

As a teenager we look forward to getting to the point when we can decide things for our self; things like, where we go, what time to go to bed, who to hang out with, what to buy, etc. When we finally arrive at that grand age when life’s decisions become more ours than our parents, we typically hope there are lots of options from which we can choose.

We want car options, college options, career options, stock options, healthcare options and certainly, mate options. However, options require making a choice, making a choice means making a decision, and making a decision can at times be very hard. Nevertheless, this is what we wanted – to choose for our self.

Having options really is a wonderful thing. Options enable us to judge and empower us with authority. They give us a sense of ownership and independence. It is true: having options gives us freedom, but having them can also keep us imprisoned. The difference between whether or not you will find freedom or a paralyzing set of shackles is whether or not you have the right decision-making keys.

Making Decisions Separates Men From Boys

I believe that the ability to make decisions is one quality that separates the men from the boys. At this point, I’m not referring to the skill of making GOOD decisions. I’m referring to the ability to make a decision, period – good or bad. Too many young men simply avoid making tough choices; it is like they are frozen by all the options so they simply drift along so that their decisions are made for them. This is a sad state to live in.

Too many men have missed out on getting married to a wonderful bride because while they stood in limbo, the prospect moved on. Too many men are floundering in the What-Do-I-Want-To-Be-When-I-Grow-Up Abyss because they don’t want to choose something that they may not enjoy down the road. They don’t want to feel trapped in a bad career choice, so they simply trap themselves in indecision.

Indecision Stems From Fear

I suspect that this inability to make decisions ultimately stems from fear. On the surface it sounds like “I don’t want to miss out on what is best.” Or “I don’t want to make a mistake.” But often those thoughts are symptoms of deeper fears, e.g., The Fear of the unknown, The Fear of losing interest, The Fear of being wrong, The Fear of Failure, The Fear of missing out, The Fear of regret, and so on. Rarely is indecision unrelated to a fear of some sort.

Of course, I’m not endorsing hasty, uninformed, recklessness born out of impatience. Rash decisions have their own set of fears and associated problems too. Clearly, due diligence, research, prayer and counsel are aids in good decision-making. “Sleeping on it” and weighing carefully the consequences of one’s actions are not characteristics of indecision. They are qualities of wisdom.

Wisdom Is The Key

Because the quality of life we live is determined by the decisions we make, merely being able to make a decision isn’t enough. A high-quality life comes from making good decisions; and if there is one key to good decision-making, it is wisdom.

Wisdom is the prompting to do the right thing. If Knowledge is having the map and Understanding is the ability to read the map clearly and apply the keys, then Wisdom is the skill to actually navigate from point A to point B while considering all the variables that come into play (E.g., wind direction, weather conditions, pirates and other stuff the map could never reveal.) It is this skill that is so vital to good decision-making, so vital to being a man.

Proverbs 4:7 (ESV) says, “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.” The writer of Proverbs pleads for his son to take serious the pursuit of wisdom and the book of James tells us to ask for wisdom from God who gives it liberally when we seek it from Him.

My admonition to my friend as he takes off into adulthood echoes the Proverbs: seek earnestly for wisdom. Don’t take it likely; the world already has too many fools. I believe if you make your first choice to follow the voice of wisdom, then you be equipped and unafraid to make good decisions all your life.

Have you ever heard the statement, “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it?” My brother-in-law is one of the busiest people I know. He is always running in two or three directions at the same time. But there are few people I know that have influence in as many lives as he has.

In my own life, I have often made the statement, “I would love to do that but I am too busy.” In reality, I have a lot more “free” time then most successful people I know.

I have been thinking about this a lot over the last year or so. Why is it that busy people can accomplish so much? Why do people with seemingly more time on their hands not do much at all?

Is it that I really do not have enough time? I think it has more to do with my attitude toward doing something new. Most often I have been scared to try something new because I do not want to upset my comfortable life.

There are some good reasons to not work too much. I do not want to take too much time away from my family. My wife and children are more important than making a little extra money.

Still I see that successful people are often ready to take on new projects. They don’t shy away from trying something new. I think there are a few things that help them step out in a new project:

1) Don’t Be Afraid To Start Messy

I often do not want to start something new because I think I cannot do it well. Now I see a messy start is better than no start. You know, It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all!

2) Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help

I have thought, “I can’t do that myself, so why try?” It is important to know when I need help and ask for it. Also, I need to not be afraid if it is messy when done by someone else. Something done is better than nothing done.

3) Don’t Give Up

I find it easy to want to throw in the towel when things start to get hard. I don’t like conflict and I want to run away or just give in; even if I know I am right. I would rather quit than offend someone.

Successful people keep going. When they hit a bump in the road they do not stop. Maybe they change a little, they learn how to go around that bump, but they do not stop. An old proverb says “If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small.” (Proverbs 24:10 NLT).

This blog was started because I want to do more in life. I want to have a bigger impact. I want to increase the Faith of those around me. I want to increase my Finances and help others do the same. I want to teach about the ideas that formed America and increase our Freedom.

These are lofty goals. It may be a little messy along the way. I definitely need your help! I pray that I will be able to persevere and not give up.

Zig Ziglar said, “Realistically, most locked doors are in your mind.”

The video below is about Hazel McCallion, the 88 year-old mayor of Mississauga, a large, DEBT-FREE city in Ontario, Canada. She has been elected to 11 terms as mayor, holding the post for more than 30 years. This is motivates me to never give up. We can all do more!

Political scientists and sociologists long ago came to the realization that one of the most significant indicators of political behavior is parenthood. Those who bear responsibility to raise children look at the world differently from those who do not. In fact, parenthood may be the most easily identifiable predictor of an individual’s position on an entire range of issues.

Now, along comes Steve Jobs to prove the point. Jobs, the Maestro of Cool at Apple, recently engaged in a most interesting email exchange with Ryan Tate, who writes the “Valleywag” blog for the gossip Web site, Gawker.

On his initial email to Steve Jobs, Tate complained about what he described as a lack of freedom in Apple’s approach to the approval of products for its “App Store” for iPods, the iPhone, and the iPad. “If Dylan was 20 today, how would he feel about your company?,” Tate asked. “Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with ‘revolution?’ Revolutions are about freedom.”

Apparently, Tate was upset about some of the restrictions put in place by Apple. Among those restrictions is a ban on pornography.

Steve Jobs threw Ryan Tate’s definition of freedom right back at him. Is Apple about freedom? “Yep,” said Jobs, “freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin’.”

One of the interesting dimensions of Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple is his habit of answering selected emails personally. It appears that Ryan Tate’s complaint got under Jobs’ skin. It is even more apparent that Jobs’ response irritated Ryan Tate.

“I don’t want freedom from porn,” Tate asserted. “Porn is just fine.” Jobs sent back a remarkably insightful retort, informing Ryan Tate that he “might care more about porn when you have kids.” Tate wasn’t conceding his case, however, acknowledging that he might “sound bitter,” by complaining that Jobs is “imposing his morality about porn.”

There are several startling aspects of this exchange. When was the last time we saw a major American business leader take the lead to point to porn as something from which we should seek to be free?

Steve Jobs is a businessman of unquestioned ability, a technological wizard, and one of the greatest orchestrators of “cool” in world history. Nevertheless, he has not been known as a critic of pornography . . . until now.

Furthermore, Jobs is in the computer business, and that makes his comments on pornography all the more significant. To get a sense of what that means, consider the observation made by Eric Felten in The Wall Street Journal, “Apple impresario Steve Jobs is preparing to overturn one of the most basic assumptions of modern technology–that the computer business is built on pornography.”

While Felten does not expand upon his assertion that “one of the most basic assumptions of modern technology” is the dependence of the computer business on pornography, a look at that business will prove his thesis to be true. Though pornography is not the sole energy behind the quantum expansion of the Internet and digital technologies, its funding and quest for innovation have been major factors driving the digital age. The pornography business quickly recognized the computer and the Internet for what they are — the greatest and most revolutionary means of selling and distributing pornographic materials.

This is what makes Steve Jobs’ statements so interesting and significant. Apple has created an entirely new way of thinking about digital devices and their phenomenally successful iPhone and iPod technologies — now joined by the iPad — have created an enormous market for “apps,” shorthand for custom applications marketed and purchased through the company’s iTunes digital store. While the Internet at large has become a vast supermarket for pornography, Apple’s tight control over its “App Store” has prevented “pornification” of the apps.

Felten argues that Jobs’ posture is based less on morality than on a straightforward assessment that the general public — and parents in particular — will be much friendlier toward the App Store if they know that pornography is excluded.

“Apple seems to realize that it can do far more box office in its App Store if parents are confident they can let their children make purchases there without strict scrutiny,” Felten observed.

There are interesting twists to the exchange between Tate and Jobs. Tate actually accuses Jobs of imposing his own morality on the App Store (as if the contrary decision would not be just a reverse form of imposing morality). Felten also wonders if Jobs’ statements indicate that at least some sectors of the creative classes are turning cold to pornography as such a dominant influence. “Could it be,” he asks, “that the tide has begun to turn against pornography, and not because of any moral awakening, but just as a matter of taste and style?”

That seems more doubtful, but we can hope that it is true. At the very least, a statement like this from Steve Jobs — an iconic figure of the creative class — is hardly insignificant.

The Internet is still the domain of the pornographers, and there is little chance of that changing soon. Furthermore, any device with a Web browser can still download porn. The digital world is rife with sexually explicit material, and this includes many musical and film offerings through Apple’s iTunes store. Still, the “no porn” decision for the App Store is remarkable on its own.

While Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley do their best to interpret what all this means, one dimension of this development is clear – parenthood matters.

Steve Jobs made this clear in his retort to Ryan Tate that he “might care more about porn when you have kids.” No kidding. Parenthood changes everything about one’s outlook on life and its challenges. A parent lacks the luxury of believing the world is all about himself or herself as individuals. Parents necessarily and understandably begin to think of the world in terms of how their children, and by extension the children of others as well, engage the world. This concern extends to the digital world, where the generation of young “digital natives” will spend much of their lives.

Ryan Tate got more than he bargained for when he made his protest to Steve Jobs. In a strange way, we are now all in his debt, because the response from Steve Jobs now puts Apple on the line. In the end, the real meaning of this media eruption is less about computers and “apps” and more about parents and kids.

Parenthood matters. Just ask Steve Jobs.

Eric Felten, “Steve Jobs In the Garden Of Good and Evil,” The Wall Street Journal, Friday, May 21, 2010.