Marta Benavides is a spiritual leader who has led many initiatives towards peace in El Salvador. Marta has faced great dangers and lost many friends to violence. She currently centers her work in Sonsonate, one of the most violent cities in El Salvador, and in Santa Ana. In both places, she works with local people, manifesting peace through the creation of opportunities that nurture life, including training for livelihoods, cultural activities, education for sustainability and planting butterfly gardens. It is difficult to find things to say about Rev. Marta Benavides because communicating the breadth and depth and expansiveness of Marta’s vision and the consequential revolution in the life and purpose of rural persons in El Salvador is almost impossible to do in written form. At the heart of Marta’s work is a spiritual approach to peace, achieved through conflict transformation. “I understand now that you cannot force things, you have to work with problems. Things simply do not change from one day to another. You have to transform from one stage to another, by always focusing on what form you want to take. It’s not about fighting and living, it’s about living and being. How can we work to create conditions so that the best of everyone is evidenced? The Decade for Peace was not good enough, we need to educate for peace. So all of our work in the community has to include discussing peace and showing the transformation we desire.” However, “Peace is not built, peace is something within us. What we need to build are the processes to manifest it. We cannot buy or obtain it, because peace is inherent.” Those words speak of how deep Marta’s faith reaches. Peace is inherent. We need only build processes which manifest it.

How can we in the United States find those processes in our own country? How can we look at ourselves and find that peace that lies within us? The depth and richness and revolutionary quality of this work started by a single woman with faith, hope, love, boldness, risk and vision in a time where her country’s people suffered overwhelming hurt and injury is the inspiration for this trip. We hope that by observing her initiatives we will begin to discover how to live our daily lives fighting for ideals of peace and community.