“The purpose of life is not to be happy,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. “It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

More than two decades ago, Devota Nyiraneza (right) carried her daughter Valentine, strapped to her back, across Central Africa for more than 2,400 miles. Devota was one of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi tribe members fleeing the Rawandan genocide, which took 800,000 lives. It took her a year to get to a U.N. Refugee camp in Cameroon.

Thanks to the support of the Army of Good, we are helping Devota to stabilize her life, and help her children continue their education in the United States.

Along the way she endured starvation, rape, murder, extreme heat and exhaustion. Tens of thousands of fleeing refugees, starving themselves, left their children in the hope that someone might come to feed them. All along the way, soldiers and militiamen fired shotguns at the refugees and slaughter many thousands more.

It took Devota a year to make that trip, at the end her skin had all peeled off and she was walking on bones. “I did not think I would ever survive,” she said,”but I never once thought of leaving my daughter behind.”

I asked her what kept her alive. “God,” she said, “I never stopped praying to God.”

Valentine, an articulate, charismatic young woman is 22 now – she spent most of her young years in a refugee camp.  She is quite special, and her mother’s grueling journey has shaped her life.

She remembers nothing of that journey, but she acknowledges that it has shaped and changed her life. She is sad to find that the political atmosphere in America involving race and immigration is also frightening and disturbing.  She is studying to be a nurse at the Albany Medical Center, but has interrupted her studies to help the family pay back some loans they took out, including one to buy a new car after an automobile accident.

“Every day is a gift,” said Valentine, “I have to make a difference at all times.” I went to Albany yesterday with Maria to give Devota another check – this one for $3,000, and also to meet Valentine. We are close to paying off the $10,000 loan Devota took out, thinking it was a financial aid grant.

We were sitting in Devota’s tiny apartment in South Albany Sunday, it was a warm and sunny afternoon.

The family made us feel especially welcome, we sat and talked and drank from bottled water.

Devota shares the space with her four children, all of them the result of rape. Rape was a constant horror to the women on the march, the soldiers and militiamen they encountered in their flight became notorious for raping the women refugees. Devota kept all of these children and is raising them still.

I gave the check to Francis Sengabo of RISSE, the refugee and immigrant support center in Albany, they will help schedule and administer loan payments taken out by mistake to help Devota’s oldest son go to college to study engineering. I hope to help Devota further.

Everyone in the family has interrupted their education to pay back loans that were necessary for them to survive. Devota is working two jobs, one helping the disabled with Catholic Charities, the other mopping floors at the Albany Medical Center.

Valentine hopes to return to Africa – she identifies as an African – in time to see her grandmother, who is old and frail. It was especially touching to meet Valentine and see the two of them together. “I thank God for making it here,” she said. “When I think of all of the things my mother endured to get us here, I know I have to make something out of my life.”

Devota remembers coming across an abandoned baby and picking it up. She carried it for nine hours until, by some miracle, she came across the child’s father, who had been searching for her. The child’s mother, who was starving, prayed for someone to find her child and feed her.

The hardest thing for her on that long journey, Devota he says, was to see the bodies of the dead children, spread across the forest floor for hundreds of miles. For most of them, there was no one to come and save them, no food to bring them. She said she could never have left her daughter behind in those forests, she would have laid down and died with her first.

I showed Valentine photos from Maria’s website, and she lit up seeing Maria’s potholders and quilts. The two clicked right away with one another and we invited Valentine to come to Bedlam Farm. Maria offered to teach her how to make potholders and quilts, and she said she very much wants to come.

I asked Valentine if she was following the ugly struggle over refugees and immigration and race in America, she said she was. Every night she worries about her older brother – where he is, who he is with, if he is all right. “We all bleed the same,” she said. She said because the children have never had a father, she seems especially responsible for their well-being. She is acutely conscious that there are people in America who hate her, for the color of her skin and for her coming to the United States.

When I hear the refugees tell the story of their suffering and horror, it hurts my heart to think that they now have to face fear hatred, and uncertainty in America, when they left so much of it behind. I keep telling them this is not the real America, the real America is fighting for it’s heart and soul. That remains

Valentine is a remarkable woman, perhaps the result in part of having a remarkable mother. She is determined to make her mark on the world, she hopes to resume here nursing training. I told her I’d love to talk with her about the possibility of applying to college.

So thanks so much for helping me to meet and know these two extraordinary women.

I am committed to staying in their lives, if they wish it, and Maria is eager to help Valentine especially. I am committed to writing about the new refugees to America, about whom so many lies have been told. I believe it’s time for such truth.

In Devota I find a person of great strength and character. She understands the value of freedom, she works hard, is devoted to her family, breaks no laws of any kind. I can’t think of a better candidate to be an American or to come to America.

Your support is helping to transform the lives of this family.

In America, I’ve often read about a cycle of poverty that draws the poor and vulnerable into a network of loans, payments and pressure that makes it almost impossible to move forward. Devota faced enormous handicaps when she came to America – she was a single mother with four children, no support of any kind from the father’s, no English skills or relevant work experience.

She has done an amazing job of putting a life together for her children, two of whom are already seeking some form of higher education. Devota’s life was upended by the loan she mistakenly took out and also by a car accident last year that demolished her car and forced her to get a new one.

RISSE is helping her navigate these financial concerns.  So are you, the Army of Good.

Against all kinds of odds, Devota has made it to America raised some beautiful children – we met three of them yesterday. And you have helped her to regain control of her life and help her children to move forward with their education.

Thanks so much for your support in this, it will make a great difference in the lives of this family. Devota is now a United States citizen, so are her children.

I am determined to meet with the refugees and immigrants who have come to America in recent years, and tell their stories. We are lucky to have people of such character and drive come to our country. If you wish to help me in this work,  you can donate to my refugee fund at my post office box, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge. N.Y., 12816 or via Paypal, [email protected].

This work now seems even more urgent than before. I will stick with it.

Blessings to all of you.