Well, I wanted to share our excitement with knowing that Belane knows about her new family, but I have some other emotions to share as well.

I have to admit that it is different with Belane than it was with Benjamin. With Benjamin, he was in a very small care center, where all of the children got adopted. He was one of the children that had waited the longest to be matched with a family (and yet it was still under a year). When we were sending off his package and the photo album of his new family, we were SO EXCITED!! He had waited so long, and seen so many other children get their photo albums and seen so many other children come and go…we were so glad it was finally his turn.

With Belane, it is different. Of course we are excited she knows about us. She deserves a family and it feels so good that she is no longer an orphan. The thought of her walking around in her new t-shirt, looking at our faces and decorating her friends with the stickers we sent her bring tears to me eyes. And yet…

And yet there is this pang of guilt. The guilt comes from the knowledge of all those other little kids at AHOPE looking at Belane in her new t-shirt…all of those other little kids watching the nannies oohing and aahing over the photos of her new family…all of those other little kids…

I have seen these kids smile on the "waiting children" videos...smiling at a camera, knowing the people taking the video will use it to try and find them a family. I have felt these kids pull on my shirt, hang on my arm...anything for a moment of attention.

They are little kids have been waiting a lot longer than a few months for a family, and they are little kids that in all reality, may never see the day that they get a shiny photo album of a family coming to get them…promising to love them forever.

Because they are HIV positive, most of them will wait. And wait. And wait. Many are already past the age of baby and toddler, which makes them harder to place anyway. Many are boys, which also makes them harder to place. All of them have HIV.

There are a handful of children currently being adopted from AHOPE, and yet they are still a definite minority among their peers.

I know if we visited Benjamin’s orphanage today, that none of the faces would be familiar…all of the children he lived with have come to their new families in America and have been replaced by new children, who will soon be replaced by more, in a continuing cycle. But I know when we travel back to AHOPE, all of the same faces will be there, with the exception of one or two who have been adopted, and a handful of new faces that funding has created room for.

My heart breaks for all of those children we will leave behind. I pray every night that more families will open their hearts to these children, and spread the word that HIV+ children can be adopted, and that their future is bright.

I know that we can’t “save them all”, and in fact I truly believe for the first time that we have “found” all of our children. And yet a little piece of my heart will always belong to all of those children who aren’t mine…to all of those children who wait to be loved.