Author: Michael McNeil

The past 24 hours have left me stunned. I have marveled at how life comes back. There was a time a decade ago that I did not have any wealth, no company, not many friends, family was distant, church relationship broken, health was at a low, and my family was without even a home. Today, all of these have been restored. My life is even a testimony of something greater through its renewal. Each morning and continuously around the globe life emerges with a new energy. The sun comes up and a new day dawns. The forest springs to...

I was recently reading a report on Child Welfare and Adoption put together by the US Department of Health and Human Services and presented to Congress¹. The most recent report covered data up through 2011. I was researching this topic because of comments I have heard others make related to such statistics and I wanted to see what was true. Here is one example that I have heard a number of people say. It is the idea that If one family in every church in America fostered a child we would not have any kids in the foster care...

Many of you that know us are aware that we often have teenagers living in our home, and many more that regularly drop by the house. We have found the investment is substantial, but the rewards are really special. We view all of these as our kids even though many of them have families of their own. Our goal is not to replace their parents but to be a part of a process that has been lost in American culture. The phrase “It takes a village to raise a child” did not stop being true in 21st Century America....

Flying back from South Carolina last week I had a lot to reflect on. The plane was dark and quiet and I could choose what to think about and spend my time on. I could think about my daughter’s wonderful little family I just visited, I could think about the other one that lives in St. Louis. I could think about business challenges, demands on me, pressures of life or any number of things. What kept coming to mind on the trip is how I am not much different from the billions of others in the world moving through...