Sue Silverstein was in church with some of her students Monday morning. As she left the cathedral, she got two texts from social workers working with the new Afghan refugees. Two families with three small children each were desperate for bedding and towels and blankets.

She was alarmed.

Bishop Maginn High School had just opened up a free “store” in the school. The new refugees can come into the”store” any time to pour through the clothes and other items donated for them over the past few days and take what they need. But the store, crammed with donations,  was emptied within hours.

She knew that I  had put out a call for help from a group of readers we call The Army Of Good last week on the blog; she didn’t know we had just put the new wish list up.

She was getting worried about having enough support for the refugees arriving in Albany in steady numbers. They come with nothing and need everything.

They are expecting 500 people from Afghanistan alone, plus refugees from other countries. She also put up a call for help on the school’s Facebook Page.

Sue, who is deeply religious, started praying. The refugee support structure had been dismantled during the Trump administration; there is little structure to help them in their first years in America.

She walked the short distance to the school, wondering what to do, and was stunned when she got inside. The post office had come in force, along with UPS And FedEx. There were packages everywhere. There are lots of good people in the world.

She said she nearly wept when she saw the boxes and cartons and packages sent to her last week when we put out a call for bedding, towels, comforters, quilts, and blankets, days before the Wish List.

“There are boxes for the Afghan refugees from all over the country,” she wrote me. “Some of your folks turned out in force, also some of our alumni. It’s honestly mind-blowing how good people are. Plus, I learned that the entire Thanksgiving Wish List is gone, and I didn’t even know it was posted. So we are very blessed to know you all.”

Her office was filled with boxes, from floor to ceiling. There was hardly room enough for her 37 art students. The new Thanksgiving Baskets Wish List had been published on Bedlam Farm Sunday night and had sold out by Monday morning. I wanted to surprise her, and I succeeded.

But I am the one blessed to know Sue, who spends almost every waking moment of her life teaching and helping and saving children who too often have been left behind, suffered great persecution, or been abandoned by society.

Soon, some battered and bewildered Afghan children will be lucky to get into her classroom and fall under her loving and dedicated soul.  She will take them under her wing, teach them and support them and guide them through this challenging time.

She is a great friend and inspiration to me, and I love her dearly. It is a gift to see and hear her so happy today. She is the real deal; she carries the teachings of Jesus Christ in her very being.

She cares for every child in the world.

A couple of hundred boxes and packages are heading her way. The store will be busy for a good while.

She might need a bigger store.  I’m’ going to visit the school on Wednesday. Maria is coming too, bring her quilts. (A Facebook reader named Su called me a hypocrite because Maria is getting some new quilts to the school after asking that unique gifts be sent for health reasons. Attacking Maria is an excellent way to get me going, and we tangled for a bit. I told myself to stop wasting my time, bait should not be taken, it should be tossed back into the water. Maria made the quilts from never used quilt tops, it was too stupid an argument even for social media.  I told Su to talk to Maria, but of course, she didn’t. Social media will either kill me or save me.)

She also learned that in addition to all the food coming (groceries are donating turkeys), one blog reader sent $500 worth of  Visa gift cards, and another sent $500 in cash. That will buy a lot of turkeys.  Using money sent to me by people who don’t like to shop online, I purchased $500 worth of blankets, shoes, towels, and Thanksgiving food.

The past few days have been extraordinary for me, wonderful and affirming.

First, We got James Richard Seron, a lonely man in the Mansion and life-long ambition,  a guitar and harmonica. He is strutting and playing away.

We put up a ground-breaking Mansion Wish List that gave the Mansion residents nearly $1,000 in new and proven games, puzzles, and books designed to save and improve memory and stimulate thinking and well-being.

We sold out another Wish List four days later; this one sold out a Bishop Maginn High School Thanksgiving Basket Wish List asking for help purchasing nearly $2,000 in packaged foods so the new and existing refugees can have their first (or sometimes third and fourth)  American Thanksgiving dinner.

A hundred or more blog readers are massing to help these refugees and send help to Sue, Afghan, and other refugees as Thanksgiving approaches. They are sending towels, blankets, comforters, and Maria is bringing four new quilts to Bishop Maginn.

I realized today, taking my first walk with Zinnia in months, that this is my pathway forward, my work and life now. Thanks to people like Sue, and Kassi at the Mansion I have met many of the people we help and gotten to know them. That makes it so much easier to help them. I never tell them what to want, I ask them what they want.

I realize this is my pathway, to do good in the measured, focused, and effective way.

I am the wanderer, the deranged prophet. All this good happens because of the trust between me and hundreds of mostly total strangers I don’t know and will probably never meet. They are the ones responsible for all of this good; I can no longer calculate how many people we have helped in these past six years.

I only know that this is my calling, work, and life for as long as I live and can think and breathe.

As the country grasps with turbulence and conflict and division, this is what I am committed to doing for the rest of my life, or until my brain ( or heart) finally implodes. Doing good is my salvation, my selfish way to survive amidst a whirlpool of argument, fear, and hatred. This is who I am, and how I stay grounded and how my life stays meaningful.

This is what I am good at, to my surprise. This week was transcendent, it was so rewarding, like Sue, I can hardly believe it myself.

This work is my calling, not my job. I have this feeling we are just getting started.

It feels wonderful to do good, a powerful antidote to the anger and distrust that fills the air. So I thank you once again for all of your help and support, and I promise you from the bottom of my heart that I will continue this work and be faithful to it and you.

You have saved me as well as hundreds, perhaps thousands now, of other people.