The Spirit of Medjugorje

"Dear children! I am with you to tell you that I love you and to encourage you to prayer; because Satan is strong and every day his strength is stronger through those who have chosen death and hatred. You, little children, be prayer and my extended hands of love for all those who are in darkness and seek the light of our God. Thank you for having responded to my call."

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The Testimony of Deacon Tom and Sharon Maedke

By June Klins

      Recently I was inspired by several testimonies I watched on the "Fruit of Medjugorje" program on Mary TV and hope to share them in upcoming issues. This month, I want to share the testimony of Deacon Tom and Sharon Maedke from Steubenville, OH. I will never be able to do justice to their heartfelt witness, so I hope you will go to marytv.tv and watch Episode #374.
     Tom and Sharon met in college. They married and were living near Chicago in what Tom called "kind of a secular life". Around 1988, a friend gave him a video that her father had taken in Medjugorje. Tom said that although the video was in black and white and taken with a hand-held camcorder, it was outstanding. He took it home for Sharon to watch. Sharon interjected here that she was too busy to watch it, but then one day, she decided to take a look at it. As she was watching it, she was very convicted. She said, "This is Fatima in our day!" Her first thought was that she would sell everything to get there, including their dream home they had just built. She told Tom, "We have to go!" Sharon felt strongly that the Blessed Mother's message was a call to bring the children to Her. In prayer, she felt prompted to bring their nephew Michael (age 18), and their godchild April (age 16), in addition to their own three children, who were younger. To pay for the pilgrimage for the five children, they decided to sell their horse. They were told they would never get what they were asking for the horse, but they got exactly what they needed!
     Around that time, Tom had a business convention in Traverse City, MI. They stopped at a church looking for a morning Mass and were told there was no morning Mass there, but that a church down the street had one. As they drove into the parking lot, they asked a lady walking out if there was morning Mass and she said, "Yes, we have Mass in the morning and, by the way, are you interested in going to Medjugorje? We have 12 people who just returned from Medjugorje and they're giving a witness." What are the odds??? They signed up with the Michigan group to go to Medjugorje. This first pilgrimage was in 1990.
     The flight overseas was from Chicago, where Tom and Sharon lived. There was a snowstorm in Michigan and the only way the group could get to Chicago involved leaving their luggage behind. They all agreed, including a man named Larry who lived with agonizing back and neck pain from an accident. He had a tractiontype instrument in his luggage that he left behind, knowing he would be in severe pain without his instrument.
     Once they got to Medjugorje, Larry's pain increased every day he was without his instrument. The day the group was scheduled to see Vicka, Larry was in so much pain, he didn't think he could go. The group begged him to go, so he did. Once they got there, they pushed Larry through the crowd at Vicka's house and got him right up front. Sharon thought it was wonderful that he had a nun right next to him. When Vicka came down the stairs, she prayed over certain people, including Larry. That evening, Larry shared that when Vicka placed her hands on his head, it felt like the weight of his instrument that he used every day that was in his luggage. Her hands relieved all the pain and he had no more pain!

The wooden crucifix on Apparition Hill

      Later that night, Larry woke up in the middle of the night with a bright light in his room. He sat up in his bed and watched what was like a video playing on his wall. It was a re-play of what had happened to him that day. He watched Vicka come down the steps and walk past him. The nun who was next to him said, "Vicka, this man – come back to this man," motioning to Larry. So Vicka came back and laid hands on Larry. When the nun turned, he could see part of her face. He said, "I knew right then it was the Blessed Mother. She was so beautiful!" Tom said that Larry wept through the whole story and that it was truly amazing.
     Tom then related another miracle they experienced on that pilgrimage. A priest who was with them bought 500 little white metal Blessed Mother medals, which he took into the apparition room during Our Lady's apparition. When he came out, the medals were all coated in gold. He gave everyone in the group a medal. When Tom and Sharon returned home, they had a gemologist friend of theirs look at the medals. He said, "No, this cannot be gold. It doesn't make any sense." He took it into the back room for an analysis, and he came out looking "snow white". He said, "This has a fine dust of gold all around. It's 24-carat. I know of no process where we could adhere gold to white metal."
     Sharon then began to talk about the blessings their family received. She was a bit apprehensive before the trip because their children were so much younger than their cousins and she was afraid they would be drawn away from the spirituality – would not want to go to Mass or pray the Rosary. And that did happen. Sharon cried out to the Blessed Mother. "You wanted them here. Now you have to do something with them!" That night there was an apparition on Apparition Hill. People were gathered around the metal cross that was there at the time (where Our Lady's statue is now), praying the Rosary. Sharon was so happy to see her son kneeling on the rocks. All of a sudden he was gone. Then he came up behind Sharon. Crying, he said, "Mom, Mom, come. Come and look. Jesus is bleeding." She thought he meant the metal cross, and he said, "No, not that one – the one back here. Come, please. He's bleeding." Everyone in the group heard this, so they followed him back to the wooden crucifix that is still there today. He stood at the foot of the cross, crying, and then his sisters began to cry also. April was standing back by Sharon and asked, "What is the big deal? What do they see?" So Sharon explained to her that God does not make you see things you do not want to see. With that, she started stepping back, and sobbed, "How could they do that to Him?" As they were looking and praying, a little Croatian woman dressed in black came up to Jesus on the cross and lifted her hands up as far as she could, about knee height, and came down his legs and put the blood on herself. When she did that, Sharon began to cry. Sharon said, "She just continued to do that, like showing us – this is what you do."

      That night when they got back to the hotel, Michael was not there. Sharon was worried about him, when all of a sudden he came through the door, carrying rosaries and scapulars, a totally different person. She said all the children were transformed. "It's just changed their lives and the extended family." Tom added, "The fruits from Medjugorje continue to shower upon our family and our friends we share it with. It's such an amazing place!"
     At the end of that pilgrimage, they found out that one of the priests with them was the pastor of the church they originally stopped at in Traverse City and he told them that his church DID have morning Mass. But had they gone to that morning Mass, they probably would not have been on that pilgrimage! God works in mysterious ways!
     In 1994, Sharon and Tom and the children went back, this time taking medical supplies because of the war. Tom said he visited the orphanage (now called John Paul II). He said there was a large room there with ladies of all ages dressed in black. Sr. Josipa, who ran the orphanage at the time, said, "Every one of these ladies lost their families to the war. They're basically orphans. Each and every one of them has forgiven the soldiers who killed their families." Wow!
     Sharon then began to talk about the orphanage. I was very interested in this because I had been to the orphanage last year for Mass, but had been sick the night that the story of the orphanage was given. Sharon said that Pope John Paul II had asked Sr. Josipa to start this orphanage, to keep the children as a family unit, so that they wouldn't be split up. Sr. Josipa's biological sister, Sr. Cornelia (who is still alive and runs the orphanage) helped her with the orphans. They had one family of six children. Sharon exclaimed, "It was such an honor when the children and I came back in 1997 and were there for a month." This time, there were 50 children in the orphanage, and they also had a summer camp in which, every week, 50 children from the war areas would get to come "and just be children". Sharon said there were many mornings when they did not have bread or something to eat, and Sister would just say, "Pray! Just pray – it's coming." And it would always come. Sharon witnessed many times when someone would hand Sister money in one hand and she would give it to someone else needy from the other hand. "She had such a trust in the Lord. Anything that she needed, it would be there." One time, there was a group from Italy helping out, and they had run out of olive oil. The chef even threatened to leave! Sr. Josipa told Sharon not to worry. "It's coming. It's coming." All of a sudden, a couple appeared with five gallons of olive oil! The next morning, Sharon looked out the window and saw an elderly woman shuffling away from the orphanage dragging a gallon container of olive oil. "She [Sr. Josipa] held on to nothing. If someone asked, that was God asking, and she gave freely."

Painting of Sr. Josipa and St. John Paul II at the orphanage

      Tom interjected that they have even had the privilege of meeting some of the orphans who are now adults. Sharon said that when they returned to Medjugorje in 2018, her prayer was, "Blessed Mother, I would just love to see some of them if possible." And they did get to reunite with two of them!
     This year, Sharon and Tom brought four of their 13 grandchildren to the 2019 Youth Festival. Sharon exclaimed, "All they want is to come back!" Tom said, "We're already planning for next year's Youth Festival. The Youth Festival is amazing!"
     Tom continued, "It [Medjugorje] has truly been a wonderful gift to our entire family… We just wish everyone would come here. It strengthens your faith so much. Really come here and just concentrate on prayer and growing in the faith, growing in the love of Christ through His Mother. All the beautiful people you meet just almost instantly love you – strangers you meet from all over the world. The love here is tremendous."
     Sharon added that it was through Medjugorje that Tom was led to the deaconate. Tom said, "It is such a gift. And then to come to Medjugorje and to be able to serve at St. James! It's such a phenomenal gift – just amazing! We're coming back!"