Well, yesterday we went to tour Joshua's orphanage, CRAN. We were excited to finally get to see the facilities and we certainly were not disappointed! CRAN is up in the mountains, even higher than the 8600 ft above sea level where our hotel is located. It is magnificent and the work everyone does there surely should be commended. We again met with Ximena, the foundation director who asked us how it has been and if we had any questions. She then gave us a picture of Joshua's birth mother which left us in tears. And we were so happy to see that she also wrote Joshua a letter which we will save for him to read when he gets older. We then sat with Ximena's son, Gonzalo for a lengthy explanation as to the many different facets of CRAN. It was amazing! He explained to us that of course they have a separate birth mother's home where they provide four major areas of care for the mothers: nutrition, psycological care, vocational assitance and emotional support. He stressed again that at no time are mothers pressured to place their babies up for adoption. He also gave us some staggering stats about Colombia. According to their last census, 54% of all pregnancies in Colombia are unwanted. We were pretty blown away by that. He also said that 60% of Colombians live at the poverty line making about $2 a day, of that 60%, 40% live well below the poverty line earning only $1 a day. While we haven't really been exposed to the extreme poverty stricken areas of Bogota, we have seen some very poor areas. Please keep all of these people in your prayers!
Gonzalo also then told us about the process that takes place after mother's decide to place their children for adoption. They must sign the papers at ICBF relinquishing their rights and then the babies under 1 year of age go to the foster mother's house. There are about 16 foster mothers that CRAN uses, all trained to take care of the babies.. they each take care of up to 3 babies at one time. At this time a child may be placed, assuming that all the paperwork is ok. If for some reason one of these babies are "abandoned", and the parent does not legally relinquish their rights it could take years for them to find permanent families. In this instance, CRAN then takes the child (after 1 year of age) and they live on the premises. Right now they have 70 kids living there between the ages of 1 and 7. While they live there, they receive lots of care. They have psychologists on staff to assist with the children, a speech pathologist, a nutritionist, several social workers, teachers, and physical therapists. The children are all well cared for. They are exposed to art, music and of course schooling. We were so impressed with how awesome the facility was and how clean it's kept! Of course we got to see all of the children...and if you know me, I fell in love with them all! I would so wish to be able to take more home with us! Just to give you an idea, right now there are 2 sibling groups of 4 that are ready for adoption, and two sibling girls that I fell in love with. The most heart renching part of the tour was being greeted by so many of the kids. Many of them walked up to us and hugged us as we toured the facility. The kids seemed very happy and the staff is wonderful. If you think you might be willing to take in one of these little ones as your own, or if you just want more information about CRAN, you can log onto: www.cran.org.co They also accept donations by way of money, clothes, etc. It was a wonderful morning! We are so thankful to the awesome people who work at CRAN and who make these little ones wake up with smiles on their faces every day. xoxo

Also an update for today... unfortunately we will not be able to fly out this Saturday back home. I know, I know, we are heartbroken too! The courts are still in the process and so now we have booked our returning flight on May 20th to arrive at about 6pm in Miami. We hope that we will be able to move the flights sooner than that, but, it seems that everyone's process here is moving very slowly... we think due to Semana Santa and the time that we lost during that week. We promise to keep everyone posted as to the exact date when Josh will arrive home! keep praying, that's the best FedEx we've got to get home sooner! lots of love to you all! (Happy Birthday Bibi, we miss you! And a very happy belated birthday to Auntie Aly, Uncle Jim and Joe. We sooooo wish we could be there to celebrate with all of you! xoxo)