There was a thunderstorm during my morning shower, and we lost power, but fortunately the outage was very brief. Breakfast was followed by morning prayer in Ivan’s chapel. Then we had a bus trip to a local orphanage called Mother’s Village, which had been built because of\u00a0children who were orphaned by the war\u00a0in Bosnia, and is still needed now. The\u00a0children do not reside in \u00a0one large building, but rather, \u00a0in several small ones. Their residence buildings, each a different color, \u00a0were constructed with money that had been donated by people in other countries. I did not make note of which countries donated money, but I do remember that the largest building was donated by Americans, who made the most significant donations.<\/p>\n
The site is peaceful, with delightful gardens\u00a0on the grounds.\u00a0I would love to have seen the children in school, but it was not\u00a0a school day. The only children we saw were a boy teasing a girl by taking her ball, just as siblings do everywhere.<\/p>\n
Back at our residence, it seemed that rain was imminent, so we decided to eat lunch locally.\u00a0Many of our group had enjoyed a nearby restaurant that they had nicknamed \u00a0“The Cave.” It did resemble\u00a0a cave, but we headed for\u00a0an al fresco table \u00a0that was covered by an awning. Laureen and Buck were already seated with Father Dan, and they welcomed us.\u00a0\u00a0We \u00a0had not spent time with them before. This was their tenth visit to Medjugorje, so they knew the town well, and often went off on their own for meals. Suddenly there was a huge downpour, \u00a0but we remained dry.\u00a0While we enjoyed our individual salads and a shared pizza, I chatted \u00a0with Laureen and discovered that we were both mothers of Eagle Scouts.<\/p>\n
JoAnn remembered that Vicka’s childhood home was nearby, so when the rain stopped, \u00a0we walked there. It is run as a little museum now. Inside there’s a bedroom and a living room, and the window from which Vicka made her first appearances to groups that gathered below. A pair of red shoes that were given to Vicka by Pope John Paul II were supposed to be there, but\u00a0we didn’t see them.<\/p>\n
JoAnn had told about a nearby\u00a0castle, and several of us decided to walk to it.\u00a0There in the middle of nowhere was indeed a castle.\u00a0Wings of it were completely finished and\u00a0\u00a0were used \u00a0by visiting clergy. \u00a0Another\u00a0wing\u00a0was\u00a0the residence of the owners, Patrick and Nancy, who were not at home at the time. There were also \u00a0many chapels, and several other wings were under construction.<\/p>\n
From there, we walked to town, where our group was to meet to pray the Stations of the Cross. I had never seen outdoor Stations of the Cross before, nor have I heard them prayed other than on Good Friday. Father Bob led us through the Stations. \u00a0There was enough room for our\u00a0our group to gather before\u00a0each one\u00a0while we took turns reading the text.<\/p>\n
Several people including JoAnn wanted to climb Apparition Hill, but they were discouraged because of the slippery mud from the rainstorm. They also wanted to climb a much more\u00a0significant hill, but it was deemed even more dangerous because of the\u00a0wet weather.<\/p>\n
After this very full day, we walked back to our residence. Dinner consisted of vegetable soup, salad, chicken cordon bleu, and \u00a0potato puffs made from freshly cooked mashed potatoes. After we ate, John stood up. He explained that this was\u00a0the anniversary of the day that he and Dianne were married, and he brought out a special cake that he had ordered for us to share with them.<\/p>\n
A large group including JoAnn still had energy, and they decided to go to town. Having no energy myself, I went to bed. During my slumbers, I was awakened by \u00a0pop! pop! pop! sounds. I thought, “Gunshots! This can’t be happening!” I ran into the hallway. There I discovered\u00a0that those whose rooms were across the hall had a view of the street. \u00a0A family across the street was celebrating their daughter’s wedding\u00a0\u00a0with fireworks that made popping sounds as they lit up the night sky. What a relief!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There was a thunderstorm during my morning shower, and we lost power, but fortunately the outage was very brief. Breakfast was followed by morning prayer in Ivan’s chapel. Then we had a bus trip to a local orphanage called Mother’s Village, which had been built because of\u00a0children who were orphaned by the war\u00a0in Bosnia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medjugorje-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=760"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":766,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760\/revisions\/766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}