Back in 2015, Mark Joseph Peredo was at a great place in his life after landing a major client for his struggling marketing business. As he headed home to celebrate with his family, however, a disaster stuck that would change his life forever.

While Mark drove on the highway, a car going the other direction crossed the median and smashed into his vehicle. Mark was left with a shattered foot and numerous broken bones in his face, leaving him needing multiple surgeries. He could not walk for a year, and he was left no choice but to give up his dream of becoming a successful business owner.

During his long road to recovery, Mark had no idea that the other driver was suffering as much as he was, if not more so. The reason why Luke Hutchins lost control of his vehicle is because he suffered his first seizure while behind the wheel. He had to be airlifted to the hospital, where doctors informed him that he had veins in his brain that formed two deadly knots, which saddled him with chronic epilepsy. They said that this malformation, which is known as cavernous angioma, could kill him one day. This diagnosis left Luke unable to drive, work, or even take care of his daughters.

Mark knew none of this, and as he recovered, he harbored strong feelings of anger towards the other driver. When his foot finally healed, he decided to celebrate by walking the 500-mile Camino de Santiago, a trail that starts in France and moves through the Pyrenees Mountains before ending in Spain. Thousands of pilgrimages have taken place on this trail over hundreds of years, and Mark was hoping that he would experience a healing of the soul on it.

The pilgrimage ended up working, and when Mark got home in November of 2016, he no longer had any bitterness towards the other driver. In fact, he realized that the final step of his healing involved him needing to contact Luke personally.

The two were nervous to speak to each other at first, but when Mark learned that Luke was not at fault at all and needed healing as well, he knew that he also needed Camino. In 2017, the two embarked on the trail together, and the journey was hard for Luke at first due to all of the medications he was on. Mark even had to shoulder his backpack on the first day during a steep climb, but Luke refused to give up. Over the 40-day journey, Luke got stronger and stronger, and he soon took himself off the medications. The two men also had many heart-to-heart talks that helped them both to heal.

Mark is now creating a documentary called Road To Muxia, which will detail his hikes on the trail, and Luke will be involved in it as well.

“For me, going through this process of healing and letting go and not hating is something I needed to do—to prove to myself, to prove to my children that you have to stay the course, and that something good will come from it,” Mark said. “I wanted to go back because I was broken. Luke wanted to do it because he was broken. We helped each other.”

It’s amazing to see how powerful forgiveness really is! Find out more about this in the video below.