As a young child growing up in Brazil, Leide Lessa felt at times like the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

She lost her mother at age ten and was left to look after her father who was suffering from a debilitating mental illness.

“The situation became really, really difficult and one day when I was 12 I went to my piano class, where I had once a week lessons, and started playing and making lots of mistakes,” she said.

“My teacher asked me ‘What are you doing? Why didn’t you do your homework?’. And I just burst out crying and told her what I was going through at home.

“She told me about Christian Science and invited me to go to their Sunday school programme. And that first day I went, I told them my story and they gave me a Bible and a copy of their religious text, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

The experience changed her life — she’s been a Christian Science practitioner ever since.

Ms Lessa is currently on Island hosting a lecture series entitled The Joy of Saying YES to What is Right!. The final presentation takes place at Charities House (25 Point Finger Road in Paget) tomorrow at 3pm.

Ms Lessa tours the world teaching people about how to get more out of their life and the Christian Science faith.

The denomination is often confused with New Age practices like Scientology and has also been labelled a cult.

However, Ms Lessa maintains nothing could be further from the truth. “We are one in many ways with Christianity,” she explained.

“Christians, all Christians, believe in the Bible and the Word of God and the stories in the Bible.

“One key point in Christian Science is practising pure Christianity as Jesus taught. When you read the four Gospels in the New Testament you read a lot about the healings that Jesus performed during his three-year healing ministry.

“And what Christian Scientists endeavour to do every day of their lives is to seek healing, emotionally and physically, in the pure way that Jesus taught.”

Ms Lessa said she witnessed these healing powers early on in her faith walk.

Soon after she started going to church her teachers encouraged her to study God’s word and pray.

Then one day her father’s health took a turn for the worse.

“My older siblings took my father to the hospital and he was diagnosed with an incurable mental illness,” she said.

“I was devoted to and trusting in God by reading the books I was given and praying every day. Then about three or four months later my father left the hospital completely healed and lived for more than 20 years after that.

“That first healing really kept me in Christian Science.

“I have seen many other healings since then from cancer to head or stomach aches. I myself was healed from depression. I have seen others healed from problems with knee and back pains as well.”

In tomorrow’s lecture, Ms Lessa will share how people can make better decisions in their lives.

It’s a topic she feels many people are struggling with.

“During the 90 minutes I try to interact with the attendants and bring them along to see what it means to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and how we can find peace within ourselves to make the right decisions at the right time,” she said.

“If you think of a teenager when they are about to go to college, they are deciding which kind of profession they want to go into or struggling with girlfriends or boyfriends.

“For adults they might be in a relationship and want to get married, but wonder ‘Is this the right person?’ Or be looking for a job and get two offers and be struggling between one that pays more or one that might be more emotionally rewarding.”

She said her ultimate goal was to empower people to trust more in themselves and God.

Ms Lessa’s teaching role through the First Church of Christ Scientist, in Boston Massachusetts, has taken her all around the world — North and South America, Europe and Africa.

She is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, English and German.

“I feel God has called me to do this,” she said. “I can’t even start describing the joy that I feel going into many different countries and sharing what has helped me and what has been helping others.

“Seeing people relate to what you are saying and experiencing healing from God during my talks is incredible.

“Sometimes people come to me and say, ‘I came here and felt this pain and now it’s all gone’; others come to me crying with tears in their eyes and identify with what I’ve been saying. They may have been struggling for years and then you develop a relationship and I keep helping them through e-mails and phone calls.”

• For more information on the free lecture, call 332-6030/232-1116 or e-mail christian.science.bda@gmail.com.

• Visit www.christianscience.com