Our Story
Kristin & Kelly Dale - owners of the property, ‘Eagles Nest’ and co-organisers of the Australian Casa (in collaboration with many others).
The ‘k’ family on stage in the Main Hall of the Casa Dom Inacio, Brazil
(Kristin, Kelly, Kiri, Kane & Kai Dale!)
Story as written by Kelly Dale,
I first heard about John of God and the Casa de Dom Inacio in 2000, when at the time I was part of a meditation/spiritual development group in Avalon on Sydney’s Northern beaches. The group was run by Barry Eaton (former ABC broadcaster). One of the group’s members had brought along a friend of theirs, a guy called Gary. Gary had a wonderful story to tell. He told of a journey he had made to a remote town in the mountains of Brazil in South America to see an amazing medium, Joao de Deus or as most Westerners call him, John of God. Here, he had been ‘operated’ on by the man himself, only it wasn’t Joao doing the ‘operating’, it was an entity or spirit (as Joao is an unconscious Trance Medium). His story sparked something inside me. My own psychic skills were beginning to bloom, and this story sounded incredible. I remember thinking at the time, I would love to go there one day!
This particular time in my life was extremely stressful. We were in the middle of a huge renovation on our house, with me not only building but acting as foreman for several others. Kristin (my wife) ran her own film and television casting company and was working very long hours, often seven days a week. Our children at the time were1, 3 & 5yrs. I remember one particular night, it was pouring with rain and we had taken the roof off the house and replaced with tarps (doesn’t it always rain when you take a roof off?!). That night we had thirty buckets out catching the drips coming through holes. We eventually moved into a caravan park and lived in a pop-top caravan. We were so in dept at this time, our mortgage had reached gigantic proportions. We wondered how we had got in such a situation. During this period in one of my development classes, I got very definite information from the entities on the other side. “Continue to finish your home, then put it on the market. You will be moving north. On this property you shall build a spiritual centre. Money will be provided”.
Even though these words were comforting, the prospect of putting our house on the market in the middle of a real estate recession was scary. If this wasn’t enough, my father, John rang with terrible news, he’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Already a spiritual man, I suggested he google John of God. It was decided we should take the risk and travel over to Brazil. Unfortunately he was a lot sicker than any of us knew, and would not be strong enough to make the journey. Instead, we met a healer, Jennifer. She agreed to perform some special healings on my father, calling in the entities of John of God in Brazil. Those healings were amazing, we all saw movement and visitations in the room and the energy was huge. These healings greatly affected my father. From then on he was at peace, not only with himself, but with others around him. He passed over two weeks later, but before passing, he told me he would make contact with me from the ‘other side’.
We did indeed finish our house, and put it on the market. Not only did we sell it, but secured a record price for the street.
As ordered by the entities, I flew up north to the Byron Bay hinterland looking for our new property. I was guided to look for large acreage for some reason. After looking at about 34 properties we saw, ‘Eagles Nest’ and knew it was the one. Within in 6 weeks we had moved.
After living on the property for one year and with my 40th birthday fast approaching, Kristin asked if I would like a return airfare to Brazil for my birthday on my own to see John of God. The next day, whilst in town, Kristin bumped into a lady she had only met once before, who mentioned she was flying to New Zealand to see a man called John of God. What a COINCEDENCE! Off to NZ we both went.
The morning of the third day of the event, Kristin had a message to write a note to take in front of the entity, saying, “Should we travel with our family to Brazil?” That day, we joined the queue with thousands of others. People around us were on crutches, in wheelchairs, limping and generally in a poor way. As we approached Joao (incorporated), Kristin, with her note firmly still in her pocket, decided at the last minute not to take up the entities time with a question. As she passed, he took her hand, pulled her back and spoke through the translator, “I look forward to seeing you and your family in Brazil in the near future”. We were both amazed and it was the validation needed to start making plans for the trip. On the last session of the NZ event, I was guided to go in front of the entity and ask permission to sit with the mediums in front of Joao. During the session, I felt hands touching all over my body, it was so real, I opened my eyes thinking someone was trying to tell me something. Again, when I shut my eyes the same thing happened. I was having fun!
At the end of the session, the translator announced that everyone in the room had an ‘operation’. It made sense. A traditional NZ Maori performed a special prayer, thanking Joao for visiting their shores. Suddenly everyone in the room burst into tears. Everyone. It was a very special moment. The overwhelming feeling was of an unconditional love.
It took us under twelve months to plan everything for our six month journey to Abadiania. One week before leaving, my father made contact with me from spirit and announced that he and I would be writing a book together. We would begin in Brazil as he said the conditions would be perfect. Off we all flew, Kristin, myself and our three kids, Kiri 9yrs, Kane 7yrs and Kai 5yrs. 2 nights accommodation pre-booked and no Portuguese language.
On arriving in Abadiania, the first task was finding a house to rent. We stayed in a pousada (small guest house) whilst looking and because our finances were tight, we decided on a house a long way from the Casa de Dom Inacio. It was right on the edge of town, 30 minutes walk to the Casa.
So we bought 2nd hand bikes!
By Australian standards you would call it a shack. The yard was dirt, barbed wire was used as a clothesline, the floors bare concrete and constant electric shocks from the power points. But the kids loved it, as the back yard had five car bodies in it and car pieces piled high plus a couple of large mango trees to climb. The next task was finding a house keeper to look after the kids on Wednesday’s, Thursday’s and Friday’s when the Casa operated. The owner of the house, Dilva, took the job and it felt a little strange having the landlady as your housekeeper. But then this was Brazil and almost anything goes. We even painted our own rooms, helped render walls and tile floors (although the bathroom remained un-grouted for our stay).
So what began was our six month journey. Settling in to the way of the Casa, learning the rules, meeting lots of like-minded people from around the world and giving our kids a cultural experience (not hard when you are living in a neighbourhood where no one spoke English).
Kristin helped out in the soup kitchen after every morning session. She would turn up, put her apron and hat on and begin washing 100’s of bowls or serving soup out of the biggest saucepan you have ever seen. I joined her later and we became soup kitchen regulars. We both gained so much from the experience.
The Casa Dom Inacio soup kitchen
So what were we wanting to get out of our time at the Casa? For me, I hoped my medium skills and healing abilities (being able to serve in this area) were going to expand and we knew in some way that here was the place we would receive more information on the spiritual centre in our future plans. Sometimes it would be frustrating going in front of the entity. You never quite got the answers you were expecting!
Sometimes all you would get is a smile and a nod and told to sit in the current room. So this is where we ended up spending almost all of our sessions. On one occasion the entity asked us to write an essay on blank paper, another time we were told to bring some photos and diagram of the building location. So we quickly emailed back home to Australia and asked friends staying at our property if they could email some photos of our mountaintop. They emailed back around 50 photos that we sorted through until Kristin picked one out that looked like it showed the best angle of the land. We had it blown up and on the morning we were to take it in from of the entities, someone suddenly noticed that the photo had a huge pink line spread across the sky. It was clear they were telling us this was the photo.
On approaching the entity, he leaned forward and held the pendant on my necklace. “Where did you get this?” the entity asked. “It was given to me”, I replied. The pendant was a united religions symbol. The entity nodded. “Do you understand what it stands for?” he said. “It represents unity with the major religions world-wide” Kristin replied. “This is what your centre must stand for. You must each work with male and female crystals and take home a crystal bed for the centre,” he said. Then he added, “This chain is no good for the pendant, get a stronger chain.”!! We felt as if all our thoughts and reasons for being there were right. Arturo, one of the volunteers at the Casa, told us he would explain outside what it all meant.
He took us aside later and explained that the male and female crystals were a connection to the entities. We were to sit in current with them and begin the work necessary. This we did. For the first few days, the energy was extremely powerful.
It was around this time, we were planning a side trip with the children to the coast of Brazil. Arturo mentioned that Joao was travelling to his affiliated casa in Villa Vella and that I could attend as a medium. I was honoured. As I found out later, I was to see the spiritual hospital for a reason. I was the only ‘gringo’ (white westerner) to be seen. The building was simple, very small, but ran like clockwork. Joao seeing thousands of people a day in this centre. During one of the healing sessions I felt hands all over my body. It was like a spiritual groping (only a good one). It was a humbling experience and I was honoured to take part.
Our own travels continued up the coast. On returning to the Casa we were all made filos (son’s and daughters) of the Casa – mediums of the Casa, Many other wonderful moments occurred (mostly in the current room). We were invited to San Jose pousada run by Ida for dinner with a group of people including Joao. It was a fun night. Joao, the man, as always described, was a humble man. We had a lot of laughter. During the course of the dinner it was mentioned that we were going to take back a large crystal to Australia.
Sure enough, at the end of the next day, Arturo said, “Follow me, I have to show you something”. With that he took us around the side of the main hall to a large garage, unlocked the gate and showed us a couple of amazing crystals inside. He pointed to the largest and said, this one is to be to go to America and then pointed at other beautiful rose quartz’s and said, “One of these is to take back for the Australian Casa”. We were speechless, partly because the energy in the room from the crystals was pounding. Others began to crowd around. We are still to this day, overwhelmed with the emotion that the entities have entrusted us with such a special task. This happened in our last few weeks at the Casa. Why were we being told all this at the end? Obviously for a reason.
Even our children quite often sat in the current room alongside us. They speak of people receiving spiritual anaesetic for ‘physical operations’ and having fairly hyperactive children at the best of times, I am sure mine received spiritual sleeping pills, as they often drifted into a deep sleep during a 3-4 hour current session!
Another volunteer, Emilio, who was given special permission to work for a period of time as a chiropractic energy healer at the Casa, spoke with both of us and said, “I have been told by spirit to show you my work”. It was difficult as he spoke little English and even though Kristin learnt quite a lot of Portuguese (more than myself), our Portuguese was limited. But somehow it worked, Kristin translated his manual and he gave us the simple teaching, “to feel the energy, to allow our intuition to operate, to connect with spirit and let them do the work”. Again we were honoured to have further guidance.
On our last day at the Casa, we queued one final (never really final) time to simply say thank you to all the volunteers, Joao and the entities. Also for entrusting us with The Australian Casa and the mother crystal. We did not expect any reply, but our learning was still not over (nor is it now). With our three kids in tow, the entity pointed to me and said, “I trust you,” then pointed up to Kristin and said, “And I trust you,” and repeated this three or four times. Then he continued with giving us a task, “You must find a woman here who is wearing an eye patch, she claims she sells essential oils channelled with Dr Augusto’s energy. You must ask her to stop.”
We left in a daze, thoughts of needing to finish packing for our long journey home and of how we were to being to find a woman amongst over 500 people. As we stood there, a woman with an eye patch appeared out of nowhere and Kristin asked her if by chance she was selling oils. We sat down and explained what was asked of us. Kristin explained that maybe the Dr Augusto she was channelling was a different spirit using the same name as the one here at the Casa. We also explained that essential oils are fine to work with back home, but whilst in the Casa grounds if people are asking for healings they must not mix energies. This is a very important rule. We hope that she listened to us.
Looking back at our journey I can now understand things more clearly. I understand why we were shown the very small casa in Villa Vella. We needed to see that healing can happen in the smallest of places. It is not the building but the intention with which the healing is performed. At one point the entity said, “Just start the building, work in the foundations you have”. We also now understand why we needed to be in Abadiania for six months. To observe and study not only the Casa rules but the way in which the whole place is run and how to deal with different human beings. So with being told to go back to Australia and just begin, that is what we will do. Yes, there are plans for a large Australian Casa to be built on our property. But this will happen in good time. We also learnt that we can not do this on our own. This is not our Casa in Australia. It is everyone’s Casa. We are merely providing the land and space and hopefully inspiration for others.
We are merely a link in the chain of a greater destiny that we can not even begin to fathom. One where we will need lots of help along the way.
We have immense gratitude for everyone who works at the Casa de Dom Inacio. Medium Joao, the volunteers and staff - thank you from our hearts.
Street soccer
Outside our house