Nati and Hendrick bring the Mother of God to hundreds of homes in Germany. For 11 years, this couple has been evangelizing together with their two young children, Maximilian and Sofía. But this is only because a few years earlier, the Wrobel family experienced the sacrament of confession on a pilgrimage that transformed their lives.
Nati had been in the midst of her journey of conversion when she met Heinrich Wrobel, a young German man with whom she fell deeply in love.
“I found out that Hendrick wasn’t actively in the Church. He had been Catholic, but he’d strayed from the Church. It was a very difficult time for me,” she says.
Because he had left the Catholic Church, they were legally married in a civil ceremony. However, the fact that he was no longer Catholic made Nati, as a believer, reflect on the importance of the sacrament of marriage.
A pilgrimage for her marriage and conversion
Desperate about her situation, Nati made the decision to go to Medjugorje as a last resort. She went not only for her own spiritual benefit and to save her marriage, but also for the conversion and salvation of her husband Hendrick.
Upon arriving at the small village hidden in the mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nati invited her husband to go to confession, but he refused. Surprisingly, as they approached the confessional area in the parish of St. James the Apostle, all the confessionals were closed except for the German-speaking one. Nati saw this as a sign from God, but Hendrick still refused.
However, one day while they were there, Hendrick did the unexpected, and went to confession on his own.
“When he came back, I saw that he was different. But I didn't ask him anything or say anything to him. I wanted to wait until he told me what had happened. I looked into his eyes and it seemed like he was crying, so I went up to him and asked, ‘Are you okay?’” Nati recounts.
Hendrick replied, “The priest sends you greetings. And not just once; he sent you three greetings. When I began the confession, in the middle of the confession, and at the end of the confession, the priest said, ‘Greetings to your wife.’”
At that moment, Nati came to believe that God was thanking her for her tireless work in praying for her husband's salvation and conversion. It was as if the priest were saying, “It’s thanks to wives like you that a home can have God's love and see how important it is to seek the salvation of our husbands and children.”
The confession that led him to God
Medjugorje was a turning point in Hendrick's life, a key moment of conversion. Hendrick himself recounts that the experience of the sacrament of confession was something unprecedented in his life, a supernatural moment where he discovered God. Upon his return home, he started to pray the Rosary and go to Mass on a daily basis.
Mary's maternal care, Nati's fervent faith, and her tireless trust in God gave Hendrick the gift of being formally received back into the Church in Dortmund, Germany, in 2012. Not only that, but upon his return, he became an apostle of the Blessed Virgin.
“Thank God, with His plans, Hendrick returned to the Church a few months after visiting Medjugorje, and we were able to get [sacramentally] married,” Nati tells Aleteia.
Their mission as a family
Since then, the husband and wife have belonged to the international mission of the Pilgrim Mother of Schoenstatt, and also to the Mission for the Love of God, which enthrones Our Lady of Guadalupe in the homes of hundreds of families in Germany.
“We feel that this is our mission as a family: to transmit to other families, by our example, this love for the Virgin Mary and for everything that God gives us in order to continue bringing more people closer to all that is of God,” explains Hendrick.
And Nati adds, “I think that here in Europe, faith needs to be rekindled. That’s why it’s important for each of us to spread the message with our testimony (...) God sent us his mother to help us deal with all kinds of situations and to bring us closer to the Church. (...) She, as a mother, will take care of us.”
And so, for 11 years, Nati and Hendrick have been sharing the joy of Jesus and Mary with everyone, especially their children.
"Just as we care about the food that nourishes our children, spiritual nourishment is also necessary to follow a life of union with God. Especially if we want it to be a part of their daily life, something that our children seek from God, because they already have a need for the word of God.”
“When we go to heaven, God will ask us to show him our hands. In one will be our children and in the other will be our spouses, and He will see what work we have done for them and how we are bringing to Him those we love most."
