Here is some news for anyone who wants or needs to feel good about themselves today.

Sifa now has the key to her new apartment. It will happen.

Last week, I asked for help in assisting Sifa to get out her apartment in a dangerous, drug-infested street in Albany. There were five or six men sitting on the stoop when Ali and I showed up last week, not a single one moved an inch as we tried to get up the stairs and around them.

When a police car drove by a few minutes later, they all vanished.

Sifa is a survivor of the horrible Congo genocide, which is believed to have claimed 10 million people.

She lost her husband, and her sister, whose child she is raising along with her own three, and all of her family. A drug den has moved right next to her and she was afraid for her sons. The apartment was small and dark and cramped.

We found her a new apartment on a safe and attractive street a few miles away, and today, the landlord came over to give her the key to her new apartment, which is clean and comfortable and spacious. She is moving on July 1, and Ali and the soccer team are moving her in – two of her sons are on the team.

She has a good job at the Albany Medical Center, she can afford the new rent, she just needed help with the deposit. She is not asking for any further assistance, she says she can take care of herself.

We are also giving her several hundred dollars to buy some new clothes for her children, and she has accepted that help.  Clothes is very important to the refugee children as they try to assimilate in American schools.

That is all the help she requires now, but it is a major step which will radically change her life.

Not only will she and her family be safe – the police were called to the apartment house  seven times in recent days, she was afraid for her sons  – but she can walk to her job. Sifa spent years in a refugee camp in Africa before being admitted to the United States two years ago.

The refugee mothers say they have lost many sons to the streets.

Sifa is hard-working, charming and just as nice as she looks.

This is just how we feel it should work. We choose carefully, raise and spend money thoughtfully and with boundaries. We can’t afford to give people money if it won’t really help them, we can’t take over people’s lives,  we look for people who just need help getting to an open field where they can take care of themselves.

We stay small and focused. We look for happy endings.

We are not seeking miracles, just offering a push to people who need it and can follow through. Our help counts. We say no a great deal, and yes when we can make a difference. That is difficult sometimes but necessary.

Ali has been my guide to this world, and to the people in great need, we are brothers in this work.

I am stunned and impressed by the strength and determination of these refugee women, most have literally been through Hell, lost their husbands and families, are single mothers with children in America. They are eager to work and driven to give their children better and safe lives.

What people often fail to realize about many of the refugees is that they had good loves in their original countries, they worked hard and lived comfortably. This poverty and challenge is new to them, the frequent byproduct of being a refugee. It is not their natural state or experience.

They bear this burden with grace and tolerance.

Thanks for helping us to help them. This is a huge gift to Sifa and her family – her apartment was a mess and her street was smoldering. She can take it from here. Next week I will be there when she moves into her new apartment.

I want you to see what  you did. And thanks. Sifa has the key!

Next week, we are also meeting with Lisa again, we want to help her get into that open field.