Thank You

• to Julie who's case was extremely similar, both she and her agency put themselves out there. I have no doubt their willingness had a hand in moving forward. Julie, I will forever be indebted to you.
• to my agency, for prooving like many other things in life, size does not matter :). They never gave up and continued to back me until the approval came through (for the 3rd time!!). They may be among the smallest China programs, and we may not always have seen eye to eye (as someone on RQ so kindly pointed out), but in the end, they did what others may not have been able or WILLING to do.
• to my friends who, on a moments notice, had to provide updated referals, guardianship letters... some of them not even knowing it might come up. sorry.
• my neighbors, for taking me in, during what has been 1 of the 2 most difficult times in my life. They kept me simply "moving forward" though I honestly felt like I never would again.  
• to the few, who I took a leap of faith with and shared my pending news. My sincere thanks to the ones who honored my privacy and respected my needs.
• to my team at work, they gave me distance when I needed it and came close when I needed that.
• to every person out there who got personally involved in the life of a stranger, mine. They posted on blogs and facebook accounts, called senators, higher up government officials and individual agencies looking for info, trying to help in any way possible.
• Chris the Chinese Consulate Courier... he's the man, The Man, if you need help in a pinch... I cannot express how screwed up it got and the extremes he went to fixing another courier company's issues.
• to all the people who knew how difficult this was financially and helped out. From clothing to gifts, to helping with house remodeling... the appeal process and 5 years robbed me of a lot financially, but the empty space was filled by friends.
• to the May RQ group, who rallied around me and supported me so completely. it was wonderful to watch all of you receive referrals and complete your dream.
• to Marnie for helping me create a different blog page that got the word out without sacrificing my privacy... those closest to me know privacy for me is important.
• for my old job, who laid me off (f'ers), during the recession, leaving me unable to complete my homestudy at that time... it allowed me to find a job so much better.
• I was especially touched by countless numbers of people who simply dropped me an email, a private message on RQ, or a note on my blog. So so so many offered their love and support and many of them left their phone numbers and simply let me know they were there if I needed them. Many of these individuals I had never met, online or in the real world.
• to my belief that something good has to come from all this... it just couldn't end that way.
• to the Federal Government, in the hopes they don't F up the budget issue and shut down while I'm in China, leaving me stranded at the Embassy, unable to process paperwork...
• To Todd, the travel agent, for getting me good rates, a kick butt airline (Cathay! baby!!!!) and non stop east coast to China and back. What more is there? yeah yeah, 1st class would have been great :) but you can't beat the sense of closeness and oneness in the cheap seats :)
• to that guy in my life. We're stuck in the grey area between past and future, but he's always provided me deep love, friendship and has been my rock. I don't know what the future holds but he's a good man.
• to my neighbors and work again, for both throwing me fabulous showers where the gift of friendship was more important than anything else.
• to the local grocery store for never running out of cup cakes with tons of icing and ben n jerry's during the 'rocky' months of June - October
• my neighbors kids, who never lost the faith. They prayed every night, always letting me know they wanted it to work out. When the referral came, there's nothing like the joy of a child as they yelled and clap and say "baby shower, baby shower".
• to my new boss, who has a heart of gold and has bent over backwards during a very difficult time. he knows that family comes first and when all of my accounts were hijacked and frozen he offfered to pay whatever was needed to get to China.
• to gmail for giving me back my email account after someone stole it... a few days before I left for China and locked me out of every electronic aspect of life including my bank account. wish getting back my email name meant it came with all my history, contacts and emails... but you can't get everything in life.
• to Facebook for recognizing that I am not a spammer, a hacker, a phisher and that yes, someone did hi-jack my account and yes, this is the real me...

to my heart... for opening up again when the time finally came and she arrived in my inbox. This fiesty, spike haired beauty...

last but not least... To the People's Republic of China, for their willingness to hear the appeal of one person, one voice, to listen and for reversing their reversal. I will be forever indebted to them for the rest of my life.

(I am sad that with the temporary loss of my gmail account I permenantly lost all emails... there was a long list of personal thank you's I had in draft but they are now gone. I wish I could have thanked everyone for every helping hand.)