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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Blessed Mother, I Cannot do it by Myself"

By Gail Boos

     It is a gift to be chosen by the Queen of Peace to bring Her children that have responded by saying "Yes" to make the pilgrimage to Medjugorje. It is also a rewarding one, but a humbling one too, especially when you have bumps along the way. I'm sure all pilgrim leaders will agree to that.
     It was through a priest friend that had gone on pilgrimage with us to Medjugorje, several years ago, that Fr. John Conway of Blue Ridge, Georgia, was recommended to go on our October 2017 pilgrimage. Fr. John accepted our invitation, and several members of his parish joined the pilgrimage. We met up with Fr. John and his parishioners in Atlanta at the international terminal. As we began to introduce ourselves, one young woman stood out among the rest. In my heart I just knew something was wrong with her. I did not know what, but felt that way and would later find out.
     Once in Medjugorje, as our group assembled for the evening meal, I noticed that the young woman, named Vayla, drank an awful lot of wine and became a happy drunk. I just prayed about what to do and decided to let it go to see how she would react the next night. Lo and behold, she did the same thing, so I had to take her aside and ask her to not drink so much. That went in one ear and out the other. Vayla enjoyed her wine and that was that.
     Once back home from the pilgrimage, I made it a point to get to know Vayla and her husband Russell on a personal level. As our relationship grew, Vayla started sharing her history with me. What an incredible journey she has been on, and she is blessed to be alive. Her dark journey started when she was raped at the age of 13. By the age of 16, she was pregnant, and she gave the baby girl up for adoption. About three months after giving up her baby, she started on a deeper and very dangerous path of using IV drugs, along with making and selling drugs. This she did for the next 38 years of her life. During those years, she met a man in the army and had two children by him, a daughter and a son. When Vayla was seven months pregnant with her third child, she suffered a massive stroke which left her paralyzed on the left side, unable to walk, talk, or feed herself. She was hospitalized for 29 days. It is a miracle she recovered from the stroke, and her son was born healthy. Only through the grace of God did she pull through all this. Her marriage ended when her husband took his own life.
     A mother never forgets the child she puts up for adoption, and at some point, either the mother or child will usually try and find one another. In 1983, Vayla found a little postcard from the national adoption location agency and filled out the form and mailed it back. There was no internet at the time.
     On December 23, 1993, a social worker at the agency decided to make one more phone call, before going on Christmas break, to see if a match could be found. Vayla received a call asking if she had a child on April 8, 1969, in Seattle, Washington. The daughter was also searching for her mother. So, on December 24, 1993, they were reunited for the first time. Dana, Vayla's daughter who was put up for adoption, got to meet her stepsister Jessica, her stepbrother Adrian, and her grandmother for the first time. Vayla learned Dana had been adopted by a Mormon couple and had a very good home life.

Dana, Vayla, Jessica, and Vayla's mother

     In August of 1995, Vayla met Russell by selling drugs to him. Russell had to return to Georgia as his father died. His mother was very ill and needed care, as she was suffering with Alzheimer's disease. Vayla ended up moving to Georgia to be with Russell and help care for his elderly mother. Russell and Vayla lived together for 11 years before receiving their annulments and then the Sacrament of Marriage.
     Russell and Vayla received their Sacrament of Marriage on November 10, 2007, at St. Anthony's Catholic Church, with 75 Baptists in attendance and two Catholic friends. No family was present at their wedding. Even Russell's mother was too ill to come.
     When Fr. John met Russell and Vayla for the first time, he told me he thought he had "met a pair of pit bulls." As pastor of St. Anthony's, parish, Fr. John, with all his duties and parishioners to care for, saw two lost sheep. He personally made time to get to know them and guide them back to their Catholic roots. Along this new journey in their lives, the Holy Spirit was working within them, as they just stopped doing drugs. Fr. John instructed them to give up all their addictions and the evil sin of pornography. He told them to burn the DVDs. They did not want to, but Father insisted. They obeyed him and burnt all of them. Now they were free of the addiction to drugs and porn. They went to Confession and started attending Holy Mass.
     In 2019, Fr. John, Vayla and Russell, and other parishioners from his parish, went on a pilgrimage again to Medjugorje with me. To be perfectly honest, I did not want Vayla to go because of her drinking. They had gone in 2018 and her behavior was the same. However, I did not want to offend them, nor Fr. John, so I let them return. Most of the pilgrims ignored her, but some came and complained they could not take her anymore.
     While enroute to Tihaljina, she and Russell were really having differences of opinions and Russell broke down and started crying, saying he just could not take it anymore with Vayla. He simply did not know what to do. They were arguing even on pilgrimage. We sat down and prayed and asked Blessed Mother to please help her.
     Returning to our hotel in time for our evening meal, my daughter told me that she and I were invited to Marija's apparition and I could bring one person with me. What a decision to make as there were so many people on that pilgrimage that really needed to be at that apparition. All I could do was pray and ask God to put the name of the person I should take into my heart. My daughter also prayed for the same intention. I sat down beside Vayla at the dinner table and in my heart, I knew she was the one to go. I never mentioned to Vayla about asking her to the apparition, but as she started to pour herself a glass of wine, I put my hand over her glass and said, "Vayla, not tonight!" She said, "Well, okay," and gave me a not-sonice look.
     We had to leave at 4:30 p.m. to get to Marija's, so I said, "Come on, Vayla, we have to go." She thought she was going to be spoken to again about her drinking. The moment we started out the door of the hotel, the sky was pictureperfect blue, and lo and behold, the word "HI" formed in the sky. Oh my, we looked at it and walked toward the confessionals. I said, "Vayla, we have to go to Confession," and she said, "I was just there yesterday." "That is great, Vayla," I responded, and we told Her where we were going. Vayla started to cry.
     When we got to Marija's, we were about three rows back from the front, near the statue of our Blessed Mother, and we told Vayla to write a prayer petition and put it in the basket. We also told Vayla to just surrender herself, her drinking, and all bad habits to our Blessed Mother when She came down from Heaven. When our Blessed Mother came down from Heaven, we were on our knees, my daughter and I both praying for a miracle for Vayla. Vayla told us, as we walked out of Marija's, after the apparition, that she asked Blessed Mother to help her, as she could not do it on her own.
     Once outside, Vayla's face looked 20 years younger. Even Dragan, our guide, noticed it right away. Her behavior was totally different. Back at the hotel, she had no desire for wine. Blessed Mother had healed Vayla of her drinking, and to this day, she has not had a drink of anything!
     When Russell and I were stranded in Medjugorje, in March 2020, due to COVID, I feared she might take a drink, and we called her at home in Georgia to let her know we were OK, and I begged her not to drink. She said, "I would never do that. It would be like slapping God in the face."
     God was at work in Vayla's life all along. In 2009, when she and Russell went with Fr. John to New York to attend the Papal Mass with Pope Benedict, Vayla was healed of her smoking addiction. In June of 2021, Dana came to Georgia to spend 10 days with her mother. Those days will forever hold special memories for Vayla, as Dana died on October 14, 2021. She was only 52 years old. God knew there had to be closure for Vayla.
     Today, through the graces and healing she received in Medjugorje, Vayla is a very strong, devout, Catholic woman who said she would go through her past again to be where she is today. She has a healthy relationship with her daughter, son and grandchildren.

     We can never look at anyone and judge them. Only God knows their heart and past, and He has a plan for every one of us, if we will just surrender to His will, like Vayla and Russell did. They were so blessed to have a priest that cared and loved them, to keep them from losing their souls. Fr. John Conway is a very special priest, a traditional one, who preaches truth at all costs.
     Vayla will be the first to tell you to never lose hope, keep the rosary in your hands and to always talk to God. One thing Vayla shared with me was that through all those horrible years, from the time she was a teenager, she always had her scapular and rosary and always talked to God. Surrender is the key to forgiveness, as Blessed Mother in Medjugorje keeps telling us, after almost 43 years.

Marija's chapel

     Epilogue: Medjugorje is the chosen place on earth today, where the Mother of God comes down from Heaven and prays at the foot of the Cross on Cross Mountain for all Her children that have answered Her call. It is through special graces given in Medjugorje, that Vayla, Russell, and thousands of others have been given a new path to life. Each awakening day begins with prayer, praying from the heart, and the Rosary, as Blessed Mother asks us to do in Medjugorje. She tells us to just talk to God. He is listening and waiting for us. In doing so, we find peace, peace in our hearts, and peace in our homes. Peace!
     Editor's note: Gail gave us permission to print this story, which was originally published in Medjugorje Magazine. Gail lives in Cleveland, Georgia. She has led pilgrimages to Medjugorje for 29 years and worked for 13 years as the U.S. sponsor for Fr. Jozo's orphans. She is currently working on a prayer book called "Dear Children! I Am Calling You!" We will tell you more about that in a future issue.