Tourism was not known at all in this part of the country, the Tourism association of Bosnia and Herzegovina recalls in online literature. In 1981 there were not more than 500 people living in Medjugorje. There weren't any correct civil services such as fone, electricity, water supply, asphalt roads, and so on. There were not any hostels, restaurants, shops, or coffee bars. It was fairly literally in the middle of nowhere.
Medjugorje idealist Recalls first Marian Apparition
This paints maybe a marginally more backward image of Medjugorje than was truly the case. Ivan Dragicevic, then 16, was on his way to a friend's house to observe a basketball game on television when he first saw an apparition that he took to be the Virgin Mary on a hill close to the hamlet. He recalled the situation in a recent visit to St. Petronille Catholic Church in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn, ill.
I saw the most pretty picture of Our woman in standard size, he told a full house in the church refuge. As fast as I saw that, I immediately ran home.
The following day nevertheless , he and 5 other kids from the village gathered up enough courage to visit the hill again, where they assert they received another vision of Mary, in which she talked with them for the 1st time. Thus began a string of daily visions that continues to this day for some of the visionaries, Dragicevic included.
Taking the Medjugorje Message on the Road
From Jan through May of the current year, Dragicevic had appearances like the one in Glen Ellyn booked at 32 churches from California to Massachusetts. He's not the only Medjugorje idealist slated to visit the Chicago area this year. Mirjana Soldo will speak April 22 at St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church in Chicago. IHS Pilgrimages, which organizes tours to Medjugorje, is co-hosting the event. A few days later, Soldo will take a role in an evangelization meeting in St. Charles, unwell, an event subsidized by a body that prepares tours of Medjugorje.
although many of the groups promoting tourism to Medjugorje and websites about the apparitions maintain non-profit standing, it isn't always readily clear who benefits from their efforts.This shortage of transparency has fueled criticism that the people that run these setups are rather more inquisitive about cashing in on the Medjugorje phenomenon than spreading God's word. The visions themselves also have been called into question, since some of the idealists and their families host pilgrims to Medjugorje. The web sites and tour organizations operate without the authorize of the Catholic Church, which has not made a governing on the Medjugorje apparitions.
religious Pilgrimages Make Medjugorje a Boom town
About the only thing certain about Medjugorje, as the government's traveller bureau notes, is that it is a different place today than it was in 1981, when almost all of the residents toiled hard in tobacco fields and vineyards. Medjugorje changed into a real visitor heaven for followers. There are fifteen thousand beds in hotels and non-public allowances, many restaurants, keepsakes shops, travel agencies, and pro guides in all major languages. Medjugorje today is a stunning small town of roughly three thousand inhabitants.
Many of those inhabitants will be happy to show you around for a tiny donation. Medjugorje has become the one of the largest Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world.
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