November 5, 2009 (continued): Our understanding is that the oldest religion in China is Taoism. Part of that religion required the Emperor to perform an elaborate ceremony, 3 times a year, at the Temple in his capital. The current Temple seems to have been built (and rebuilt/restored many times) around 1420 in Beijing. We have many pictures of this glorious building, but were unable to go inside. The tour guide was very helpful and friendly, and her English was very good. We returned to the hotel around 3:30, shared our pictures of home and you with her, then went to visit Bryan and Kathy.

Bryan and Kathy, along with their 3 children, live in the northern part of Beijing. The taxi ride, in rush hour, took over an hour, but only cost about 11 dollars. We had no idea where we were going, but had Bryan talk to the taxi driver twice using the cell phone we rented in China. Their apartment was very pretty, and they had dinner for us. We got to visit their newest baby, Trevor, and play with their 5 year old (Jeannie) and 3 year old (Darren). The return home was much quicker, and we got to bed after emailing many of our family and friends back home.

I was planning to post to my blog, or post to my page on Facebook, but China restricts access to those pages. Therefore, I had to send emails, and pictures, to folks. Tomorrow, on to the Great Wall of China!

Here is what I would have posted had I been able to...

November 5, 2009

Had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel, then met a guide named Nancy for a tour of the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven. The trip to the summer palace took about half an hour, through a very crowded and foggy/smoggy city. We are amazed at how many people live in Beijing (approx. 17 million). The Summer Palace is where the Chinese Emperor and his family moved in the heat of the summer. Originally outside the city, the area is still an oasis of parkland and beauty in this city. The longest corridor in the world, over ½ mile long, was originally built so that the Emperor, or his concubines, could walk along the edge of the lake, sheltered from the elements. Every post and beam is individually hand-painted with images, including 999 separate images of cranes. We also saw beautiful statues, rocks, and buildings, and a 100-meter-long marble boat built by the last Empress of China.
We “enjoyed” lunch at a restaurant meant to replicate the Chinese Emperor’s palace. It was included in the tour, but the food was unremarkable, the plates were inexpensive plastic, and the décor seemed a bit overdone. Anyway, on to the Temple of Heaven.

Back from China

We're back with Moriah Elisabeth Ao Hui Pockras. It was quite an adventure, and I will post more later. She is quite the girl. The transition was easy, and she has been a joy. God has richly blessed our family!

Leaving tomorrow for China. I guess that is why I am posting at 4:00 a.m....too excited to sleep. Keep us in prayer for a safe journey and a peaceful, joyful, and loving meeting with our daughter. We will be with her for 12 nights in China before we return home. God blesses adoption; Jesus was adopted by Joseph, and it is by God's grace that all of us are adopted into His family.

Thanks for all the support, gifts, advice, and love. We have less than a week before our "forever family" is united. Words from the Methodist hymnal come to mind:

"This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
This is my song O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine."

You don't have to go to New England to see beautiful fall images. These are from Ross County, Ohio, and were shot last week. I hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed the colors that God gives us here in south central Ohio.

We got our new baby furniture in today! The crib is ready to go (once we get bedding), and we got a dresser/changing table and a bookcase.

Sorry, but I have to post a letter to the editor that the Columbus Dispatch and Circleville Herald will not print. If you want to skip the politics, just start reading next posting. Health care reform...

Dear Editor,

Is the government efficient? Is the government the place to whom we should turn to “fix” the problems of today? However many folks die because of inadequate health care, it is too many. I cannot believe, though, that allowing the government to take over the system will make it more efficient. Is the Post Office more efficient than Federal Express? Was FEMA efficient and caring when evacuating New Orleans? Are highways quickly and efficiently repaired? Is government the source of new, innovative products or solutions to every-day problems? Has the Energy Department solved our energy problems in the last 30 years? What value does the federal Department of Education add to the lives of your children or grandchildren?

We have read that Medicare is efficient because it only charges 3% administrative costs, where the money-grubbing, inefficient, profit-loving insurance companies have 20% overhead. This may come as a shock to some, but the government defines “costs” differently than the private sector. They exclude “minor” things such as rent, utilities, marketing, collections and fraud from their costs. The private sector has to pay taxes at the federal and state level that are included in their overhead, as well as all of these other costs and, yes, a profit.

Is an emergency room physician more efficient because he doesn’t have to pay for collections (the hospital pays), rent (the hospital pays), office staff (the hospital pays), or marketing? That doesn’t make him more efficient, or more caring, than a family physician! It simply is a different way of calculating costs. So STOP USING THIS MISLEADING “STATISTIC”, please, to claim that Medicare is somehow better than private insurance!

The government has a habit of defining things differently for private industry than for themselves. Think about pension plans such as the city of Cincinnati, PERS/STRS, the State of Illinois or Social Security. If a private pension plan guaranteed benefits, but did not fund them, someone would lose their job or go to jail. Indeed, the Department of Labor has fined private industry $12 Billion in the last decade for mistakes or misdeeds when funding pensions. How many state or city government employees have been fired or jailed as public pensions are showing signs of failure? Public pension plans are a DISASTER. Why? Government makes laws, then ignores the law and blames the private sector…

The overall point is simply that government is necessary, but not efficient. It is effective at times, but not caring. As this administration and Congress seek ever more power over our lives, seeking to take over medical care, the financial system, allocation of energy resources, and a bigger share of our wallets, ask the following questions:

1) Was the government able to correctly predict the cost of Cash for Clunkers? (No, it tripled and they could not administer the program adequately.)

2. The government “fixed” the credit card problem. Did your credit lines get reduced, and your interest rate double? (Mine did. I’m not happy with that “fix”.)

3) The $787 Billion stimulus program was passed earlier this year. Does your neighbor, brother, wife, or friend have a new job?

4) Anyone see the real estate market turning around now that the Federal Government has taken over FNMA and “fixed” the housing problem at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars?

5) Is your country’s future more secure with massive debts piling up all over the world? This administration and Congress is spending money faster than water is going over Niagara Falls, and the problems we face are getting worse and worse.

President Obama, his administration, and the current Congress, now seem to believe they can “fix” the health care problem. How many times does Lucy have to tee up the football for Charlie Brown until he stops trying to kick it? How many broken promises from the government do we have to see until we stop trying to let government “fix” things?