We started our day at the United Nations in Geneva, standing before the flags of the nations. Every flag, a country. Every country a people. Every people with a story the UN exists to protect.

Then we walked into the Museum of the Red Cross, thinking we understood suffering.

There’s a bomb that fell on Hiroshima. A massacre in Srebrenica. Children in Rwanda — 800,000 people killed with machetes in 100 days. Index cards of prisoners stacked like pages in a book, except every name is a person who disappeared and someone, somewhere, never stopped looking for them.

We saw photos of a mother writing letters for her son, hoping he was alive. A son holding the last photo of his father, afraid to find out the truth. Families in Afghanistan waiting for news that may never come.

We thought we knew what violence looked like. Then we stood in front of these exhibits and realized how little we actually understood.

Restoring and building peace is a long and arduous process, much harder than recovering bodies.

As Gandhi said, “Peace moves at a snail’s pace.”
Visiting the United Nations gave us hope. It reminded us that people from every nation on Earth come together here because they share a common belief—that humanity’s problems can only be solved by working together.

Visiting the Red Cross gave us a profound sense of the enormity of human suffering, violence, and selfishness in the world. At the same time, it reminded us of something just as powerful: the extraordinary selflessness, compassion, and sacrifice of the countless people who have dedicated their lives to relieving that suffering.

Both places left us reflecting: If human beings can create so much suffering, then human beings also have the power to create peace.