Pilgrimage to Medugorje

"If you knew how much I loved you, you would die of joy"

Thursday evening we left the Kartause for a pilgrimage to the tiny town of Medugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina located south of Croatia. It has become a huge pilgrimage site for Catholics and the weekend we spent there was so peaceful, eye-opening and beautiful.
We boarded our overnight buses at 8pm and arrived in Medj on Friday morning. We checked into our two houses which held our students. The lady in charge of the houses was the nicest woman, her English wasn't great but her smiles and enthusiasm to serve us communicated more than words could ever express! I roomed with Theresa and Ellie who were wonderful roommates :)

After settling into our rooms we had breakfast at the house and an introduction by our tour guide Ivonka. We then went on a pretty intense hike up Apparition Hill. The hike was all rocks, uphill, in the sun - but it was quite rewarding and we couldn't be more thankful for the gorgeous day we had :)

Here's on the way down...

We ate lunch at Colombo's Pizza which was possibly the cheapest place we've eaten all semester while traveling - the food was not only cheap but it was yummy and there was enough to fill us up! We also caught Americans talking at the table next to us and were shocked to know we could legitimately eavesdrop and know what they were talking about. In other words, they weren't speaking in other languages ;) We had free time for the afternoon and into the evening. Dinner was at 4pm every day during the weekend at the house. A little early but that's how they do it there so we conformed :) The next day we woke up at 4:45am to hike Cross Mountain. It was dark as we were walking up till about 6:00 or so but it was amazing. I've always enjoyed getting up early but I've really fallen in love with early mornings this semester. Sunrises are truly incredible! :) We did Stations of the Cross on the way up and had another gorgeous day. This hill was higher and more beautiful than the one we hiked the day before. We had quiet contemplation at the top which was freezing but we survived ;) we had the most beautiful views all around and before hiking down we had praise and worship as a group!

We hiked down the hill and were down in time for mass at 10. After mass we got lunch. I had the biggest cheeseburger for 2 euro! Medj was my new favorite place for sure ;) After lunch we basically walked through the countryside... I had no idea where we were going I thought for sure we were in private property because there were meadows and fields with grape vines, cows and goats! But Fr. Brad was leading all of us through there so I don't know, hopefully it was ok ;)

We showed up at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Retreat House, known as "the Castle." (notice it slowly emerging in the background in the above pictures). This place was heaven on earth. Here's a brief story I found online about Nancy and Patrick and how this house got started:

"In 1991, Patrick Latta, a successful businessman and car dealer in Canada, and his wife Nancy, a commercial lawyer, left behind everything they had created in their material world, and moved to Medjugorje in 1993, during the height of the war. With Fr. Slavko Barbaric, OFM as their spiritual guide and confessor until his death in Nov. of 2000.
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Retreat House was born, with a specific desire to support, renew, and foster vocations to the priesthood and religious life."

Here's they are with Fr. Brad :)

Upon arriving at the Castle, Patrick gave his conversion story which was possibly the most amazing conversion story I've ever heard. And I have never seen a woman with more joy and generosity than his wife, Nancy. After Patrick gave his conversion story, they had ice cream ready for all of us. They were completely thrilled to have us there with other pilgrims and we actually went back a second time and she gave hugs and kisses to basically all of us and had French toast with nutella, cinnamon and sugar and coffee available for all those who came back the next morning. It's hard to describe how beautiful this experience was but it was one I will never ever forget.

Then we walked to the Community House where we heard a couple guys speak about their conversion stories and life-changing experiences with Hope Reborn - an organization directed toward troubled young men and women who most have been affected by drugs and alcohol. They're life is based upon prayer, sacrifice, renunciation, faith, and work. They have a house in Medugorje where they volunteer. If you want to find out more you can read about the organization at http://www.hopereborn.org/

The next morning we heard Fr. Brad's conversion story and path to the priesthood and also heard David's story, a once professional soccer player in Ireland. The weekend was truly amazing and uplifting especially with all the life-changing stories we heard from pretty incredible people. We then visited Patrick and Nancy at the Castle again where we had our treat of coffee and French toast with nutella, cinnamon and sugar :) It was about a 20 min. walk to the Castle so Nancy of course made sure all of us were driven in the van to mass by noon so we could stay longer with them!

We left at 1:45pm and stopped in Split, Croatia on the way back to Austria where we were planned to stay till about 7pm. We walked around by the water, picked up food and ice cream. It's known to be a beautiful city and was literally on the way back to Austria so it was incorporated into our Medj trip.

Well, here comes the grand finale of the whole weekend. All of us are messin around doing cartwheels and handstands and one flip can be done with two people back to back, link arms and one person can flip the other person over. Well Andrea's done this a million times but this time falls and "splits" her head. (In Split, Croatia). Her head is bleeding profusely so we call the ambulence and Andrea takes a trip to a Croatian hospital to get three stitches in her head. It was pretty scary at first, but honestly she probably could have lived without the stitches, but we weren't sure at the time and she could have had a head injury so it was best to be safe. Andrea was in the hospital for about 2 hours so we ended up leaving Croatia at 9pm. And the night gets crazier... Sometime between 1:30 and 2:30 in the morning bus #1 decides to break down, so we're stopped in a random parking lot by the side of the road till 6am while our saintly bus drivers are working the entire time to get the bus going again. Many people slept but mostly those in bus #2 since bus 1 was the problem and everyone had to get off since the bus was spewing fumes and smelled horrible. I was fortunate to be in bus #2 but I went out and joined people outside for a little while since I couldn't sleep even though it was freezing! Everyone not sleeping or not attempting to warm up in bus 2 played soccer outside, sang songs, and danced... not joking about 50 or more students were jumping and dancing to Josh's beat boxing in the middle of this parking lot to stay warm. Definition Franciscan right there :) Took us till 10:30 on Monday morning before arriving back at the Kartause. I washed Andrea's hair and Sarah dryed and brushed it so her stitches wouldn't get wet. This routine continued for a good week with Sarah and I switching off between washing and drying before our friend Steve took her stitches out while we were in Rome.

It was a good weekend despite some of the crazy set backs toward the end!

p.s. I apologize for the lack of pictures, I thought I uploaded them all but apparently not, I will try to upload some more later. I also don't have a picture of our outrageous 2:30-6:00am adventure in the parking lot so you'll have to do the best you can to picture the event ;)