Medjugorje Trip 2006
On Friday 20th October about 25 people set off from the Coptic centre in the morning. We were anticipating a peaceful, interesting, purifying experience. We all boarded the bus and set off on a two-hour journey to London Luton. The bus journey seemed to go by very quickly and before we knew it we arrived at the airport. There we met up with about 6 people from London completing our group. From the airport, after checking in our bags we boarded the flight towards Split the second city in Croatia. Once we arrived at Split we learned about the country’s history. What used to be Yugoslavia, since 1991 became, due to political unrest and religious tension, six countries Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia- Hercegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Medjugorje lies in Bosnia-Hercegovina. From Split was a three-hour bus journey to Medjugorje crossing the border between Croatia and Bosnia.
On the way there was a brilliant tour guide named Vodka. At the beginning she made a joke that scared a lot of people. She said that the driver had only passed his driving test 2 days ago. This made a massive uproar and laughing, a few seconds later she revealed that it was only joke and people where very relieved. On the way there she explained a little bit about the visionaries and their apparitions of the Mother of God Saint Mary. The Whole group were intrigued by all of this and felt they were going to a very holy and blessed place. We also watched a video about the apparitions at Fatima, Portugal. When we finally arrived there we were exceedingly tired and entered our Hotel. We were amazed at how beautiful and clean our hotel was. We could not see even a hint of dirt. The floor was shining and polished and Crucifixes of Jesus Christ in every bedroom and on most walls. Immediately, our hosts greeted us and we felt very comfortable and at home. After hours of travelling we sat on the dining tables and we ate. The catering and food at the hotel were amazing and everyone was satisfied. After this we went to bed and we were pleased how clean and tiny the room and how much furniture and space we had.
On Saturday morning we arose from our beds and ate breakfast. Our first scheduled event was seeing one of the visionaries named Yacob. He is the youngest of the visionaries aged at 10 when he first saw the mother of God. He gave a speech full of integrity and we found his talk very interesting. Each of the visionaries receives ten secrets and before they receive all ten secrets they see St Mary everyday but when they have received all the secrets they only see her once per year. Yacob received all ten secrets in 1998 since then he sees her on the 24th of June every year (the anniversary of the first apparition). After this we took an hour’s journey to the town of Father Yoko and we visited his parish where we he was due to give a talk. We listened to his talk about living in the spirit and reading the bible daily to let the Holy Spirit live within you.
The next morning we were due to go to apparition hill where our lady appeared for the first time we were told by Vodka information about this place. The hill took us about 20-30 minutes to climb and the place felt holy and spiritual at the top was a grand statue of St Mary and a large cross. After this we visited a place which was set up by a Nun for drug addicts who needed physical, mental and spiritual healing. We went inside to listen to a talk given by two men who came here at when they were in their early 20s as drug addicts and criminals but after a few years they were completely transformed into honest people worshiping Christ. The next day after that we decided to climb a mountain named cross mountain which is a 532m mountain which has a giant cross on the top which was built in 1933. This was to protect it from storms and undesirable farming conditions. The Cross Mountain was divided into 14 section or “stations” as they were called. We climbed up this mountain and we said a prayer and a meditation at each station, it was a strenuous climb but eventually we got to the top. At the top we all felt blessed and close to God. However we had to go back down which was more difficult than the way up.
That night we visited the Cathedral of Medjugorje which was very beautiful and spiritual. The next day was our final day where we visited a place called the Oasis of Peace which was a quiet Monastery where they pray for peace. There we listened to a talk given by a Belgian nun, and we went to the chapel where there was a beautiful cross (see picture at bottom). That ended our extremely pleasant experience of Medjugorje and thanks to God it was a complete success. May God bless us all and be with us on all our trips.
