Hardship, rosary, Alpha lead single mom to Christ

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit

Maria Sinchi tells her conversion story with tears.

“Before that, I never cried,” she said, wiping her eyes dry, visibly grateful for her ability to shed tears on a sunny day in St. Paul. “I was very hard. I was angry all the time. I finally was able to cry. It felt relieving, peaceful, cleansing, necessary.”

The years leading up to her powerful 2017 experience of Christ’s love were difficult. Having a child in 2006 at age 15 and struggling for years with her parents and other issues, Sinchi was lost.

She sought solace in partying and relationships that failed. But certain people, including her uncle and family with whom she shared praying the rosary, sparked a revival of her spirit starting in 2016. She couldn’t be more grateful, said Sinchi, 31, who was born in Virginia as her family emigrated from Ecuador and later moved to Minnesota.

“My uncle had cancer. He held a rosary every Thursday night,” followed by coffee, dinner and conversation, Sinchi said. Through his five-year battle with prostate cancer, Alfonso Bunay never showed weakness and never complained, despite intense chemotherapy and multiple surgeries, right up to his death four years ago at age 50, she said.

The opposite of complaining, Sinchi said, her uncle would proclaim, “I’m healthy. I’m with the Lord, and I’m good.”

Sinchi experienced the love of Bunay and his wife, Carmen, both of St. Stephen in Minneapolis, as she walked with them into a closer relationship with Christ. She was joined by other young adults from St. Stephen who gathered for the rosary with her uncle’s family.

“He (Alfonso) would go deeper in the Word, share his thoughts and ask others, ‘What do you think?’” Sinchi said. “It was beautiful. I got more comfortable to share.”

“I wanted that marriage, a holy marriage,” that she saw in her uncle and aunt, Sinchi said. As her uncle approached death, “the whole community at St. Stephen visited him every day,” she said. “He was so loved, so strong in faith. He’s a saint.”

Sinchi was encouraged by the pastor, then-Father Joseph Williams, now auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, to attend Alpha, an Illinois-based program that encourages small-group conversations about life, faith and the basics of Christian belief. Key topics included Jesus’ life and teachings, prayer and exploring how God guides people.

“When we started going to that, it was beautiful, too, being with people with similar problems,” Sinchi said of the 30 to 40 young adults who participated after Mass on Sundays. “We all have our traumas.”

She also received personal invitations to Mass. A leader in Alpha called each week, encouraging her by asking, “Hey, Maria, are you coming?” to see the friend had photograph, “This is side; with Johnson said. She drove driving very trouble. But sign, I saw could. When stop), she saw in the around in The woman pulled in and walked “The first everything mood.’ I began lady what in a hurry

But when side window, about her,” Johnson could began to speak language and nothing Years after wonders if “I do not I certainly knew she horrible and As Johnson woman began tried to open was locked. woman ran Weaving between was following anything road,” Johnson Not shaking police, described them, “something She supplied vehicle, and lose the woman

Soon, Sinchi with the rosary, into adoration parish-led celebration movement, trip included Steubenville One day people in “the Holy to describe. my heart.

“I just broke Someone said, ‘Jesus he loves you.’

“It was felt it. I felt hours as people People just me.”

“Since then, Sinchi said. his love again. since then. has meant hear music phenomena in the sky.” But since her had confirmed seeing the suns in her photograph, Johnson knew they were indeed there. when I had an encounter with the other what I now describe as pure evil,” said. drove past what appeared to be a woman very slowly. “It was as if she was having car But when I passed her coming up to a stop saw her speed up behind me as fast as she When I made a complete stop (at a four-way slammed on her brakes behind me, and I the rearview mirror her body kind of fly the car.” woman got out of her vehicle, long, dark hair front of her face and fists tightly clenched, walked toward Johnson’s car. first thing I thought was, ‘OK, after everything I’ve just been through, I am in no began to roll down my window to ask the her problem was. I was stressed out and to pick up my daughters from school.” when the woman reached Johnson’s driver’s window, “there was something so horrible her,” she said. “I was instantly scared.” Before could roll the window back up, the woman speak in an angry growl. “I knew it was a but not one that I had ever heard before, nothing I could ever repeat,” Johnson said. after studying sacred theology, Johnson if it might have been an ancient language. know for sure,” she said. “But at the time, certainly had never heard anything like that. I just was speaking another language in a and scary tone.”

Johnson rolled up the window to get away, the began punching and kicking at the car and open the back passenger-side door, which locked. Johnson began driving forward, and the ran back to her vehicle to pursue her. between cars and cutting off traffic, “she following at nearly impossible angles, doing she could to stay right by me on the Johnson said. “It was hostile and scary.” shaking the woman, Johnson called the described what had happened and warned “something is not right with the woman.” supplied their location, described the other and let the police know she was trying to woman and get to her daughters’ school on

The cellphone photo with the two suns in the sky taken during Meisha Johnson’s initial conversion experience “has long since been gone,” Johnson said. She and the friend she shared it with didn’t save it or have it printed.

“At the time, we didn’t think to save it. We have gone through many cellphones since then. But in some way, I believe that was part of God’s plan, too. Sometimes, I think he gives us something unique and special in a specific moment in time, for that time alone, and for whatever reason it was never intended to be saved, but rather remembered.” time. Driving quickly through side streets and making sharp turns, Johnson lost the woman and made it safely and on time to pick up her children.

So, why did this attack happen right after Johnson’s vision of the two suns?

Johnson said she believes evil wanted to disrupt God’s plan of intervening in her life that day.

“Looking back, I see how I had just had this incredible moment with my Creator. Something completely supernatural had just happened, which was to become the start of my conversion, and I think that upset evil (forces),” Johnson said. “They wanted to disrupt what was happening.”

“Maybe the evil showing itself at that moment on the road was an attempt to hurt me, or maybe it was to take my mind off the divine vision in the sky,” Johnson said. “Maybe it was another act of God, where he wanted to show me that evil does exist. It could be any or all of those things. But that woman-thing definitely became a distraction from keeping my eyes fixed on the (two) suns. I would give anything to go back to that moment and just savor it … to not take my eyes off that vision.”

Johnson was left trying to sort it all out. After an initial period of confusion, Johnson read the Bible cover to cover. “As with any book, I thought you read it chronologically,” Johnson said. “I went to the first page of Genesis, and slowly made it all the way through to the last page of Revelation. It was then

PLEASE TURN TO MEISHA JOHNSON ON PAGE 12