Anne Smedinghoff’s colleagues wanted to mark the one year anniversary of her death. Anne, a twenty-five-year-old diplomat, was killed with several other Americans, in 2013 by a car bomb while delivering books to a school in Afghanistan.

The colleagues and their friends, stationed in various U.S. missions all over the world, did the following:

—In Islamabad, Pakistan, they raised $1,300 to buy books for a local non profit that educates street children.

—In Prague, Czech Republic, they collected over 100 books for a university library.

—From the U.S. mission in Jerusalem, they visited a West Bank school and donated sets of English and Arabic books to children there.

—In Lima, Peru, volunteers collected dozens of books to start a library in a daycare center and shelter.

—In Abu Dhabi, they donated over 200 books to a rural school.

—In Riga, Latvia, they gave books to an alternative family home that supports children in need.

—in Arlington, Virginia, USA, they established a scholarship fund in her name.

—in Sáo Paulo, Brazil, they donated funds to establish a library in a low income school.

—In two missions in Mexico, they held a reading series in a local school and helped build a home for a mother and her three children.

Hate-filled people killed Anne and destroyed the books bound for the school in Afghanistan, but more books are now in the hands of those who lacked them than were ever destroyed by that car bomb.

Wrongs cannot be undone. But wrongs may be overcome, not by revenge, but by acts of compassion.