More on Adoption Orientation

Here are some interesting (in my opinion) things that we learned at orientation on Tuesday:

There are approximately 140 Million orphans in the world.
There are approximately 120,000 orphans in the U.S.
There are approximately 77o "Legally Free" children in Colorado foster homes.
The average age of these children (in Colorado foster homes) is around 10.

"Legally Free" means that the child is completely parentless from a legal perspective. It could be that the birth parents are no longer living, that they've relinquished their parental rights, or that their parental rights have been terminated.

"Orphan Trains" is a term I have heard numerous times but the concept behind which has pretty much never been explained. In fact, I've only ever heard "Orphan Trains" referred to in a pejorative manner. We learned on Tuesday that they were actually a system of placing orphaned children (primarily from New York City) in stable homes. Placing these children in permanent homes was the passion and organization of a Pastor in NY who had a heart for children living on the streets. Around 150,000 children were placed using this method.

I do appreciate the interest of all of the people who have asked questions about this process. However, if I sometimes seem frustrated with your questions, it may be because recently this is the only topic people are interested in asking about. It's not that the topic becomes old to me in any way, but please imagine it this way: What if people only asked you about your job and didn't care about anything else you have going on? How would this effect your interaction with or your desire to interact with the person/people who are doing the asking?