alcita j. ferreira brown

Alcita writes powerfully of her experiences growing up in rural Brazil after WW II. She remembers her early years with fondness and her stories reveal many features of the typical culture of her state of Goiás. However, to get an education in the hard-scrabbled Brazil of the nineteen fifties was nearly impossible. Alcita’s dream was to attend school, but she periodically had to accompany her mother and stepfather, a brick maker, to remote places even farther from civilization.

Though young, she possessed an internal knowledge that she made use of to attain her goal. This knowledge was shaped by her spiritual growth and understanding of the power of prayer. Even after being orphaned and finding herself beset by the pressures of her rural culture to marry young, she persists in her dreams and finds a way to avoid that early marriage and go to school.

The book follows her life as she finds herself dreaming other seemly impossible dreams. Again, she employs the same resource - prayer and faith in God. The book provides an insight into a culture and the heart of a woman who lives a determined and faithful life culminating in the most unexpected answer to prayer that anyone could imagine.