Debbie: We’ve been waiting for a long time to come here. We heard about Medjugorje in the late 80s or early 90s from relatives. During the 90s, my mom and I used to go to the Peace Conferences in Irvine, California. It was so amazing to see an auditorium of 5,000 people, all Catholics, praying and these gorgeous Masses that I had never experienced with all the priests coming in. It was such a beautiful experience.

I always knew I wanted to come here. 

Lori: I read the books. I was hooked on it right when I read it. 

I was a Catholic, and I was kind of fallen away. I feel like it brought me back to my faith and going back to church. 

Debbie: We’ve been thinking about coming for 25 years. 

Lori: We’re going to go one day.

Debbie: Finally, in 2019, I put a deposit down, but then the trip got canceled because of covid. I tried again, and everything fell through. Everything started opening up now. I thought this is the time we need to go. 

I tried to get you to go earlier, but you couldn’t get off from work until June. We found the perfect one, and it was this June trip. Everything worked out for us to be on this trip. 

It struck me when we first drove up and Mirjana welcomed us. I just looked at her and it’s like my breath stopped. It was like, “She’s right here in front of me.”

This whole thing has been so special. Everything. The people, the praying, the Rosaries, the Masses. 

Lori: I’ve got the big shocker. I have fibromyalgia, and I can’t walk for very long. I have to limit what I do during the day. My hip hurts. My back hurts. 

When we first got here, we went to Apparition Hill, and I almost didn’t make it. I was struggling big time, but I made it! 

I was lying in bed that night thinking, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to Cross Mountain.” I was really struggling. I didn’t sleep the whole night. That made it worse, for me to think, “Am I going to make this?” 

When I got up to get ready to go, I had no pain. I haven’t had no pain in years. All the way up and all the way down, I had no pain. 

It was a grace. 

Debbie: One of the surprises is the young people. 

Lori: There are so many young people. It’s so nice to see young people. 

Debbie: Because you guys are the future. You and your future families and how you raise your families so that there’s hope. We see hope. 

Lori: There are so many people here that feel the same way. 

Debbie: And it doesn’t matter what language we’re speaking, we’re praying the Rosary, we’re all saying our Hail Mary’s. It doesn’t even matter if we have a translation, we know what we’re doing, and we’re all praying together. 

Coming with my sister made it so much more meaningful. We want to bring our other sister and our brother and other family. 

Lori: We’re going to be back next year, and we’re bringing our brother and sister. 

Debbie: Because we want to share this with our family. 

Our brother is a priest.

Lori: Do you want to know something amazing? Our brother’s ordination was June 25th. In 2016. We didn’t realize it until we were looking on Facebook the other night. We were like, “This is David’s ordination anniversary!” 

[iMedj note: The anniversary of the apparitions in Medjugorje is June 25th]

Debbie: I thought it was very special, I don’t even remember now who was saying it, but they have a circle of prayers for specific priests. They have seven people, and every day someone is assigned to pray. I think that is so special, and we should all be doing that in our parishes for our priests.

I was telling Lori I would like to do that for our brother. We will be assigned a day and our aunt a day and everybody will have a day of the week that we can pray a Rosary specifically for him. 

Lori: I don’t think people pray enough for the priesthood. People think they’re already okay. They are the ones that probably get attacked the most, and we forget that. 

Debbie: It’s been a beautiful experience, very peaceful, enlightening. I feel like it’s worthwhile. It makes home so shallow in a lot of respects. 

I always tell people we believe that Christ rose from the dead. How come we can’t believe all these other things that are supernatural?

We know so little about everything in Christ’s supernatural world so why aren’t these things possible?