Our guest this week, Andrecinda Rocha de Morais Pina (photo), from the city of Guajará-Mirim (Rondônia), lives in Taguatinga, in the Brazilian capital. She is a volunteer worker at the Casa do Caminho Spiritist Centre and also helps at the local Spiritist Federation. She’s graduated in Collective Health, Law and Economy and works professionally as a psychotherapist and coach. In the following interview, she speaks about her first encounter with Spiritism and her role in the Spiritist Movement in the Brazilian capital.
How was your first contact with Spiritism?
As I don’t come from a Spiritist family and I was always linked to the study of the sciences, I struggled to cope when my brother was murdered. I can say that Spiritism has saved me during that void in which I found myself. I couldn’t understand how such a gorgeous, generous, sensitive and loving person could have been brutally murdered. A friend of mine suggested then taking me to a Spiritist Centre, Casa do Caminho. As it happened, the speaker on that day was talking about pride. Well, I am still at Casa do Caminho, learning something new every day.

What attracted you the most in Spiritism?
I think Spiritism will still surprise me many times in the years to come. Spiritism is welcoming, comforting, loving and liberating. In a Spiritist Centre we can learn all we need to learn about how human beings become really human. It is an environment where we are exposed to issues that in other places would be dismissed as unimportant or treated without their due respect. That is the case, for example, of stronger emotions, the power of our ancestry, why we think and what we think about and how long we have left to live, to learn and to move forward. Oh, it’s so beautiful!
Tell us about the history of Casa do Caminho, in Taguatinga.
Casa do Caminho wasn’t conceived as a Spiritist Centre. It was founded by Ciro Heleno Silvano as a maternity and a shelter for local children in an impoverished area of the city. It later expanded into a nursery, which looked after the children of mothers who had to work to support their families. The decision of opening a Spiritist Centre came as a natural consequence of that initial work. Mr Silvano was already a Spiritist and clearly he accepted the invitation from the Spiritual Benefactors to work helping other people in that field.
When did you begin giving Spiritist talks and lectures?
It was around 2005, my first year in Spiritism. Someone came to share some family problems with me. I was at the time doing a course on Nonviolent Communication and I spoke about its principles. That person then invited me to prepare a talk on that issue, focusing on family relations, and asked me to choose a related issue from The Gospel According to Spiritism. I decided to speak about “Suffering Well and Suffering Badly” and since then I have been very active as a Spiritist speaker.
What have been the toughest challenges you have faced as a public speaker in Spiritism? 
Public speaking has always been a key part of my academic and professional life. That gave the false sense of confidence in my early days in Spiritism, when I felt that I was prepared to deliver Spiritist talks and lectures with ease. That led me through some embarrassing moments. I eventually realised that the language I was using, and some of my attitudes, weren’t really adequate for Spiritism. One important thing I have learned was the importance of getting a true connection with the person who invites me to speak about a certain theme or issue.
How do you assess the importance of talks, lectures and study groups in Spiritist Centres?
I think that Spiritist talks play a very important role. One of their goals is to light up the pathways of people, incarnates and discarnates. Because of the pandemic, our Spiritist Centre hasn’t been able to host events gathering people and I’ve been getting many messages from people asking for help and guidance. We must bear in mind that attending a talk or lecture also has a therapeutic effect. The isolation brought about by the pandemic has led to deep thinking, breakups, new contacts and has encouraged a process of awakening, which for many equates to more pain. So, our mission to enlighten, console and heal is only in the beginning. We have a great deal of work ahead of us.
Is there anything you would like to say to our readers, as humankind still struggles to deal with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic?
Dear friends, how about seizing this opportunity to change the way we behave and become even better people? The Spirits’ Book teaches us that periods of mass suffering are there to speed up the pace of changes that were already taking place. So let us open up to the inspiration we need at these times, by establishing true connections with other people and by making the needs of other people also our priority. Let us be inspired to look after our emotions in the best possible way, so we can spread empathy around us and give our best, from the bottom of our hearts. Let us connect with our inner divinity and enrich this and future incarnations with lots of light and love. The tragedies and troubles of this life will pass, but we won’t. We are eternal Spirits. Don't forget that.