Dear Bishop,

I read Nothing to Lose 1 while sitting on the floor of a small balcony in our apartment. I felt defeated. We had just lost a 4-story building, which served as our workplace and had been moving at full speed for the last five years. A construction company paid the owner of the property 50% more than it was worth and got us kicked out of there. We couldn’t afford to match their offer, so we were left with nowhere to put our furniture or our employees. It was such an embarrassment. Then we were deceived while trying to buy another property and ended up staying seven long months without a place to work. We were limited to our 300 square foot apartment. Even our housekeeper left us, because she didn’t think we would be able to pick ourselves back up.

I would read the book and think, “My God, what I’m going through is nothing. What you have done for the Church is real. A man couldn’t do this on his own. Lord, you were there with him the whole time. So You are here as well.”

After many battles, tears, sacrifices and the use of faith, today I read Nothing to Lose 2 in just a couple of hours. Except now, I was reading it on the couch of our new home, which is next to our new studio, which is worth more than the other properties we had before. I took advantage of the months we didn’t have employees to manage and wrote a book, which is now among the top sellers in the country.

Though we spent more than 200 days without a place to work, all of our needs were always met. We worked in borrowed studios, we worked in places where we paid by the hour and we even worked on streets and sidewalks. In the photo below, we are working on a fashion shoot in the middle of the street, all the while, the homeless were shooing us away. I worked as my husband’s assistant, while he carried more than 20 pounds of equipment hanging from his body.

With sacrifice and faith, we bought a property that serves as our home and it has an annex that we turned into our workplace. We are located on the corner of one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. When they said, “it’s a Zone 1, its price is prohibitive, there’s no point in looking”. I replied, “I don’t care what zone its in, what’s mine is mine. I have nothing to lose!” There are only two of us, but we own three cars and we only need to take 10 steps to get to work. No traffic, no stress, no wasted time.

I dedicated myself to Godllywood and graduated this past June. Today I can help countless women through this wonderful group, my book and my blog that, in just three months, has over 120,000 views.

Bishop, what happened and happens every day in my life and the lives of millions of people who, like me, are Universal, was not part of your work; it is the work of the Holy Spirit of God. But how would the Holy Spirit reach us if it weren’t through you? Without your innumerous tears, without the blood that was literally shed on Mt. Sinai, without the loss of consciousness on Ben Nevis? That chocolate they gave you at that crucial moment, is the symbol of the same food that, today, gives flavor to the lives of so many.

A man couldn’t do this. This is why I see God in everything that you do, Bishop.

Thank you for everything!

Patricia Lages