This Christmas, I find myself thankful for so many things. This is not an all-inclusive list. If you’ve helped, but you’re not on here, it’s because I have a poor memory. Please don’t take offense if you’re not listed. You know what you did, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t for recognition anyway. On to the rather lengthy list. (My thank-you pages tend to ramble…. Remember the thank-you page for Google Hacking? That broke records.) In no particular order (except the first two), I’m thankful for:

God’s grace. At a relatively young age (35 IS YOUNG!!!), I felt a calling, something I always thought was reserved for the elderly and the missionaries. Not only did I feel called to Uganda, but my wife and children felt it as well. We followed, and God has provided (most clearly through the use of people as he’s done for millennia). We’re safe, we’re healthy and far from living as if we’re destitute, He’s provided a gorgeous home, a wonderful support system and most importantly: grace. We’re all getting along as a family, in one accord (not a Honda) and excited about what lies ahead.

My family. This goes without saying, but I am truly thankful for each and every one of them. My life would be drastically worse if not for all of them.

Our parents: They hold down the fort while we’re off saving the world and stuff. The things they find themselves involved in surprises me, but they’ve taken care of us and alleviated a lot of frustration. They’ve also kept us out of the path of angry debt collectors more than once, and they sent a way cool care package with the last team visit.

Our friends: Whether it was sending encouraging emails, sending packages (or stowing them in traveler’s suitcases!), calling, writing, or whatever, we really appreciate and miss each and every one of you.

Our “Long Journey” supporters: These folks pay in one-time and monthly donations so our family can live here in Uganda, do what we do without drawing a salary from HFC. This keeps our organizational expenses down and allows us to focus on or work. It’s really bad form to name people in this category, because everyone from the smallest to the largest donations make a real difference.

HFC financial supporters: Whether working as individuals or as a group, donors have bought T-shirts and stickers, used our donor cloud and sent PayPal donations that make what we do possible. Some highlights… “S.N.” has been our largest personal  contributor for a long time (nearing $10k), and he keeps on giving, and remaining anonymous. Paraben’s IPIC conference attendees donated nearly $4k over the past two years. “Craig” from the two-letter company made a $3k+ personal donation. Marcus Carey raised $3k through his DojoSec conference. Allen at http://n2netsec.com has contributed over $3k and rumor has it there’s another contribution coming. There are too many contributors in this category to list them all. I’m grateful for each one, big and small.

Tim Rosenberg: He came with Dwight (both from http://whitewolfsecurity.com) on a trip this year, and now he’s one of our biggest advocates. He does so much it’s impossible to list it all here. But I can sumarize. He’s sent loads of gear (stuff he donated, stuff he ordered, stuff from others) to us in Uganda. He’s organized not one but two trips to Uganda next year. He’s run down some sticky administrative stuff back home. He’s spoken about us at length in several public forums and conferences, giving up a slot to talk about himself. Oh, and he’s single-handedly donated most of the gear we’ll use for the Internet cafe. And I’m summarizing.

Chris Duke (www.gonavis.com) has shipped so much stuff to us, and endured so much pestering that he must be some kind of saint. He’s pocketed the expense for the majority of our shipments, and he just keeps serving. We wold be in deep financial and logistical without him.

“Dean”: Dean donated 50 laptops from his company, and still remains anonymous. The laptops staged St. John’s and will flesh out our cafe.

Keith Parsons: Keith donated 30 laptops and a heap of wireless gear. These will also be used in the cafe. I had no real idea what to do with all these laptops and all this gear, but there was a Plan. The Internet cafe came along and everything started falling into place.

Concetta Deleos: Concetta has been voluntarily handling our T-Shirt sales and distribution. This is one unpleasant time-consuming, unforgiving job, but she’s churned along much longer than I wold have. T-Shirt sales account for a large portion of our revenue, and I couldn’t have done it from Africa.

Glenn “Eck” Eccard over at http://ecktechs.com/blog/2009/12/11/hello-world has been doing lots of things for us, especially in motivating others. He’s on fire.

Zate has done a phenomenal job using his skills for us. He spear-headed the forums (writing lots of code from scratch) and is working on the HFC site redesign.

James Ruffer came out of the blue and offered to write us an iPhone app! Then he made an Android app! Sweet!

Sean Morrissey’s helped out with lots of things including site design and feedback/testing on the iPhone/Android apps.

IndySec (http://bit.ly/5oyQrb) blew the top off our donor cloud recently! I’ve never seem so much activity on the cloud, and thanks to them, HUNDREDS of families will be fed through our food for work program in Kenya.

Brian Baskin and Jonathan Bennett have been long-time friends, but they just keep pitching in with their skills when they’re needed. Brian’s helped with all things game-related, especially with my kid’s happiness and the cafe, and Jonathan’s admin and network skills are ensuring that the cafe will really crank in that Mzungu dollar.

The Hackers For Charity “volunteer list”: (http://groups.google.com/group/i-hack-charities-volunteers) This is the HFC “Street team”. When we run into a problem, or have a need, this team responds in force. It’s only a Google Group, but it’s so much more.

Twitter and Facebook friends: An extension of our “street team”, these folks are always there to spread the word, lend encouragement, or mobilize to nudge billion-dollar corporations on our behalf. ;-)