While nation-building under fire certainly isn't a Peace Corps mission, I saw enterprising Peace Corps volunteers make a deep impact on the communities where they were invited to serve.
The upshot - and Sharon saw this, rather than peace itself, as his crowning glory - was to be a permanently strengthened strategic alliance with the United States.
Just like it was for many Kenyans, we were still coming to terms with what had happened the previous year in Kenya during the post election violence and signing of the peace accord that saw the two principles contesting the 2007 Kenyan general elections agreeing to share power.
Earlier, in Istanbul, Mr Kerry said after talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that he saw Turkey as an "important contributor" to efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.
And the work we do in our time will make it more likely that the children that we saw today alongside children from throughout the region have the opportunity for security and peace and prosperity.