This article is an excerpt from "The Book of Miracles: The Healing Work of Joao de Deus" by Josie RavenWing.
Jan is one of the many visitors from outside of Brazil who I met at the Casa. I got to know her over several visits to Abadiania as Jan stayed there for some months. As with many others, her illness became the catalyst for great learning and rich spiritual experiences. Here is her story.
- Josie RavenWing
"I am 24 years old, and life has been a mountain climb for me. The most difficult part of this journey started when I discovered at age 21 that I was HIV positive, and I had no other choice than to choose to die or to live.
One day I had heard this clear and warning inner voice whose message struck me so hard that I knew I had to go for a medical test. I had to go for four different tests just to be sure each one of them was right, and for me life was never the same again from that point, knowing that I was sick and that I would probably die from AIDS. I had watched people on the television with the disease, and just imagining myself undergoing all of those physical changes really scared me.
I had no other choice than to choose to die or to live.
I never wanted to die when I was just 21 years old. I believed there was more to life than what I was going through. I became desperate to hear about miracles, stories and world legends of people who had overcome such life-and-death situations.
A friend who I was living with never stopped supporting me through that difficult time. However, he himself then found out he had cancer, and he needed a great deal of medical attention until his illness reached a point where his case was beyond medical help. Now we both were in urgent need of help and of any miracle we could get.
Then God opened a door for us, and we heard about the miracle man of Brazil. Wow. That moment for me was a major turning point. I felt that this man Joao de Deus had the key to my life and I really wanted to go and meet him. And so I did.
My first glimpse of the entity was already a healing for me. I walked through the line and explained my situation to him, and to my surprise, the fact that I was HIV positive didn't really seem to bother him. The fact that it didn't bother him was part of my healing. At first, I wondered to myself if maybe he didn't really understand the fact that I had HIV and was dying, as he wasn't repulsed by my illness and the only thing he said to me was to come for a spiritual operation the next day.
what was happening was that I was receiving my healing through concentrating on other people's needs rather than on my own.
After my spiritual operation, I felt so weak that I had to go and sleep right afterwards. And while I was sleeping and dreaming, I began to realize a lot of blessings that God had placed in my life.
In the weeks following my operation, whenever I would pass by the entity to see if he had anything else to tell me, he would keep telling me to sit down in the medium's section of his current room. It's funny, because at first this made me feel really neglected, as I thought it meant he didn't want to hear what I had to say about my illness. But in fact, what was happening was that I was receiving my healing through concentrating on other people's needs rather than on my own. This is what it is to be a medium, concentrating on other people in need.
The entity will work on other people through the mediums of the Casa, and in that process he made me understand that he was preparing me to do spiritual work (spiritual healing). It wasn't my healing anymore that was the main focus, but the responsibility that I help others.
