Barbara Shellhamer
Hello all to My Family,
I have been wanting to do this for some time now, so I guess now God has given me the little extra time to do this. I shall begin about Nov. of '93. A friend (who I did not know then) asked me to go to a Marian Conference she was having here in Louisville. I told her I couldn't because I did not have anyone to watch my son for that day. She said take the ticket and if Our Lady wants you to be there, you will. I said o.k. As it turned out my son's friend asked him to spend the night Friday and so now my Saturday was free!!. I went and met my mother there and we did not know that my brother had also saw it advertised in the paper and was interested in hearing about this priest from this place called Medjugorje, Fr.Svet. I had heard stories about there and something about Our Lady appearing but hard to believe, did not really grab me. Anyhow, I went and found it to be so very interesting and wonderful, full of so much info I never knew. (Picture of Barbara and her youngest son Troy).
At that time the war was still going on and they were talking about that also. I never knew anything about anything, if it was not here in the good 'ol U.S.A. It got to be lunch time and Jim, my mother and myself had not prepaid for our lunches since we did not know we were even going, so we got a drink and just went back to our seats, which we were so blessed to get in the second row. Debbie came over with this beautiful little statue of Our Lady of Fatima and asked if I would hold Her during the lunch break. This happened to be the Same Statue that was crowned in Red Square!!! It had been weeping at this conference, but I did not see this. Debbie never would leave THIS statue unattended, and since we were right there...My mom and brother both wanted to hold HER also. After the lunch break, She was taken back and put upon the stage. After that is when my families life CHANGED.
The three of us began to smell roses and thought the lady behind us getting into a plastic bag and making some noise, we didn't know if she was puttin on perfume or what, but the distracting noise! I had seen her one other time at this prayer group that I attended Thursday ,just two days before. I turned around and asked if she had rose smelling stuff or what? She said no, why? The three of us were smelling roses and it had to be coming from somewhere! We never knew the connection between Our Lady and the roses. It was SO VERY POWERFUL, it had to be coming from somewhere.
At the next break we were talking to Debbie about how great the conference was and then told her about this fragrance. Debbie then told us how this is a special grace from Our Lady, WOW!! Did we believe this, we wanted to, but WOW! A few months later Debbie opened the Marian Center on June 24,1994 and the three of us started to volunteer to work there. Because of this experience Our Lady Blessed my family with, now my sister-in-law has converted, her daughter,son-in-law,are taking RCIA classes, my brother began his own prayer group.
There have been nine of my family members to go to Medjugorje at one time together, and many of us to go back several more times after that. My youngest son was able to go two years ago, and has been in prayer groups with me since I started in '94.A youth Holy Hour on Mondays have been going on for over two years now with him, his two cousins and a few others. Next year God willing, he will begin his sophomore year at Franciscan University a small school with very, strict catholic curriculum. So God has Blessed my family mightily. We are still praying for my husband's conversion, but I told him that my prayers would be answered someday in God's time, he just says we'll see. So that is a shortened version. May God Bless each and everyone of you in this special FAMILY of ours.
+BARBARA+