BRAINTREE -- Thirty-two people from Mary Queen of the Apostles Parish in Salem embarked on an ill-fated pilgrimage to the Holy Land in October 2023, but Vianka Jimenez likes to say that there were 33 -- God was with them the entire time.

It was Oct. 7, and pastor, Father Robert Murray, was celebrating Mass for the pilgrims on the Mount of Olives when bombs started to fall. Hamas was attacking Israel, and another devastating war was beginning. Father Murray and his flock were only two days into their pilgrimage and would not return to Massachusetts until Oct. 14, with the assistance of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Trinity Tour Travels company.

When the attack started, Jimenez wasn't scared. She knew that God would take care of them. She prayed with her fellow pilgrims and assisted Father Murray at each Mass. For that, and 25 years of service to Mary Queen of the Apostles, Jimenez was one of 101 people to receive Cheverus Awards in 2025. Named after Boston's first bishop, the annual awards honor those who have humbly dedicated their lives to serving the Church.

Upon nominating Jimenez for the award, Father Murray called her "a strong and fearless person when we were in Israel, stuck there with the war starting."

"She rallied the people at a moment in which there was overwhelming fear and discord about what to do," he added.

"Being positive just like Father Murray was with his positivity that everything was going to be okay and we were going to be able to get out of there," Jimenez told The Pilot on Feb. 15.

Jimenez does not speak English. Her comments were translated by Mari Alix, her fellow parishioner and friend of 15 years.

"She's a great friend," Alix said. "She's very thoughtful. She always thinks of everyone else before her. She's very giving."

When Jimenez found out she had won the Cheverus Award, she could not believe it. She felt she did not deserve it. When Archbishop Richard G. Henning gave her the medal in a ceremony at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross last November, it felt like her heart was going to come out of her chest.

"I'm very grateful first to God and second to Father Murray," she said. "He has believed in me, and has opened the door for me to be able to do all the things that I do in church and continue to have me grow in my faith."

She cleans the church, cooks for parishioners, and is an altar server, extraordinary minister of holy Communion, and member of the prayer group. Recently, she gave Communion to a parishioner recovering from surgery and prayed with her.

"She goes to their homes, helps their families to give them a break," Alix said. "She helps them with that, helps them cook, helps them clean, brings them the Eucharist."

"It makes me feel good because I know that's the same way that God walked, helping everyone that was in need," Jimenez said.

She was born in Santo Domingo in 1973, the youngest of eight children. Her biological mother was deaf and mute, and another woman assisted in raising Jimenez and her seven siblings. She likes to say she had two mothers.

"I was surrounded by a lot of love when I was a child," she said.

From an early age, she was devoted to the patroness of the Dominican Republic, the Virgin of Altagracia. Whenever she lost something like an earring, she would pray to the Virgin for its return. She and her mother came to the U.S. in 1997, first settling in Brooklyn. Jimenez's eldest daughter remained in the Dominican Republic at that time.

"I wanted to get ahead and do better" for her daughter, she said.

Jimenez moved from Brooklyn to Salem for better work and found a job sewing buttons in a clothing factory. When she first moved there, the only person she knew was one of her sisters. That sister later moved to New Jersey. Jimenez refused to leave Salem, which had become her new home.

"I had no other support, but I always knew that through God, he was always going to be with me, and was going to help me," she said.

She is no longer able to work due to her fibromyalgia and chronic arthritis, but she continues to support her parish.

"I know that God is not going to let me get to the bottom," she said. "What I do for God is too little for what he has done for me."

The successful birth of her twin grandchildren and her youngest daughter waking up from a coma are but two of the things she said God has done for her. In her spare time, she prays the rosary, takes care of her grandchildren, and helps out her fellow parishioners however she can. She would like to return to the Holy Land someday and wade in the Jordan River.