Welcome to Anita’s Testimony

My mum, Anita Carrieri was born in Rawmarsh, Rotherham in 1958. She had 3 children Joseph, Ewan and Esta (me). She was a brilliant historian with 2 undergraduate degrees, an MA and an MPhil and studied for her PhD in historical land studies whilst working as a secondary school teacher and raising 3 children. I can’t speak on behalf of my mum, but it is safe to say she searched for spiritual truth and connection her whole life. She was a Reiki Master and Tai Chi instructor, books of the I Ching and tarot cards were normal to see around the house growing up. When I was about 5 my Dad had an affair and left us, this was very difficult for my mum with 3 small children and my aunty Marisa moved in for a time to help. Marisa was on her own spiritual journey but with The Lord Jesus. My mum eventually ended up with another man, a lot of the spiritual idolatry she dabbled in was a result of this relationship. Time passed on, we grew up and moved out, and my mum’s relationship with this man broke down. For some years my mum had been drinking a lot to numb the pain of the past, her childhood had also been a difficult one.

My grandfather in Italy, her father, passed away in 2009, leaving a house and land to my mum and her siblings that needed a lot of legal paperwork sorting out. My mum took early retirement in around 2013 to return to Lecce in Italy to begin to sort out a big family mess. She was a brave woman and threw her energy and finances into doing what she could to deal with what seemed like endless legal problems and solicitor’s fees. Sometimes she would come back and visit us in England as we all grew up. Joseph had found The Lord Jesus and married to a beautiful woman from Rwanda, Clarisse (click here for their ministry page https://thelittlepilgrimssundayschool.wordpress.com ), Ewan, a talented musician and computer programmer, struggled on and off with his mental health and drug addiction but was finding independence and I (Esta) had also found The Lord Jesus Christ and married a wonderful Sicilian man, Aurelio, who was born again and passionate for sharing Jesus. In January 2018 our father died of lung cancer after a late diagnosis, this was hard for all of us but especially Ewan who had struggled with addiction. In the May of 2018 the police came to inform me that Ewan had been found in his flat, he had died of a heroin overdose. My mum was in England visiting when we lost Ewan so was able to be with family as we began to organise his funeral. Our family was rocked. Someone who was with my brother when he died had decided to steal things from his flat over the course of two days rather than report his death and so Bradford CID were involved for 13 months before an inquest brought some degree of closure. I thank Jesus everyday that He had a hold of me before this, it felt like a living nightmare.

Eventually my mum returned to Italy, our relationship was distant at best, it was just so difficult to have any joy for such a long time. The phone calls increased and we started to talk more as I took on a degree course with the Open University in Classical Studies, I was determined to live and keep going. She helped me with my first essays, I was thrilled at the thought of her helping with my Latin year, she could read and write Latin, she was such a clever lady. It came to my second year and she was poorly, said it felt like covid or flu. She often didn’t answer the phone or didn’t have great reception so it wasn’t unusual to not hear from her. A phone call then came from a relative in Italy saying my mum was gravely ill and I needed to get a flight immediately. The Lord spoke to my husband Aurelio and said ‘it wasn’t time yet’ so I didn’t panic and booked one for that week. A few weeks earlier The Lord had been telling my husband to pray His supernatural peace and His supernatural love over me, Aurelio didn’t know why but he was obedient and did as The Lord asked. At work I went to let them know I was going to have to go for a couple of weeks and visit my mum, as I stood in the office a peace lily sat on the lady’s desk – it hit my spirit in a way I can’t describe. Meanwhile, Aurelio had arrived downstairs at reception with chocolates for me – a Terry’s chocolate orange, my mum bought one every Christmas for us as kids and a peace lily.

My mum had been admitted to Vito Fazzi Ospedale in Lecce after her heart stopped for around 10 minutes. She was resuscitated at hospital and the nurses called her a miracle. She had breathing tubes now and was struggling to talk and was being held on the pneumology ward, they soon drained 3 litres of liquid from her lungs. I arrived to find that I couldn’t enter the room my mum was being kept in, miraculously I could see her bed in the corner through the door and talk to her – she was in the only bed I could see. When I wasn’t visiting the hospital, I rang her to see what she needed me to bring. In one conversation I asked her if she knew what had happened to her and she replied ‘yes, I was in heaven’ and she described seeing the sun and her passport being held up, I told her I thought The Lord was calling her home, she agreed and said she wasn’t superstitious anymore. I was overjoyed. My heart leapt. One day as I was leaving Lecce train station she text me asking for her travel buddha from her house, my heart sank and I looked up and said ‘how are you going to save her now Lord?’ As tears rolled down my cheeks I heart the buzz of the train station fade away and I could hear the music over the tannoy … ‘our God, He can move the mountains, Our God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save’ I was hearing Michael W. Smith in a train station in Southern Italy but I was also hearing my God tell me He was mighty to save and He was going to save my mum. I discovered that the owners of the train station bar were evangelical Christians not Catholics and I was able to buy a Bible to take to my mum. That evening I told my husband about the text message she had sent and the song on the tannoy. He told me to go and close the door and pray about this, pray before I speak to her. So, I did and I told her I wasn’t bringing the travel buddha as she didn’t need those things anymore. Amazingly she was ok with it! She took the Bible off me next time I visited and began to read.

The doctor’s told me my mum’s prognosis wasn’t looking good at all, she would have to stay with someone when she comes out, I started to get rid of things from her house and prepare for her to return to the UK with me. My mum once admitted she would pray to anyone and anything and her house was full of idols from shiva to buddha and strange things on the walls. As I threw everything out, I prayed to God that He would come and inhabit the land the house was on, that it would be used for Him and His glory, I said quite a few prayers like that as I was travelling back and forth on the buses and trains. The time came for me to return to the UK but my mum was not yet able to come out of hospital, we finally had a diagnosis of a tumour on the lining of her lungs and she couldn’t be moved. I phoned her everyday after returning to the UK, praying to The Lord to give me the right scripture to minister to her. One day together we read some of Romans, she couldn’t say much so I asked her if she wanted me to read and she could give her life to Jesus by just saying yes, at the end she replied ‘Jesus is my big brother, my Leader away from the darkness towards the light.’ It was beautiful. My mum went to be with Jesus a few days later on the evening of December 26th 2022. That night The Lord gave me a vision of my mum, she was dressed in royal robes and wearing a crown, her face was so beautiful it was timeless.

As my mum had died in hospital her body was kept in the morgue until we could organise her funeral. Costs to bring her back to the UK were expensive and she was also an Italian citizen so I decided to bury her in Lecce. We asked family to pray and a number of a man came through my cousin, he wasn’t very clear on prices though and we knew this wasn’t of The Lord.  About a week went by and my mum’s cousin phoned me from Italy, she had found a funeral directors that would do everything for £1500 Euros, this included clothing her, the coffin, the burial and a little picture for the plot. The funeral directors were called Pax Funebre – Pax is Latin for Peace, just as The Lord told Aurelio to begin to pray for His supernatural peace over me, He was finishing with peace too. The only issue we had was that no one had any money for the funeral. My mum’s sister Marisa said we should do a Go Fund Me page and see what comes of it, but something made me hold off. We had not long since started attending a church in Bradford, Acts Church on Bowland Street and I wanted to go and see what God had to say before I agreed to the Go Fund Me page. At church that Sunday someone shared a dream they had, they were holding a bowl with money that kept overflowing and The Lord said it was a hardship fund for Christians on Earth who were going through difficult times. I had received a small hardship fund from my teaching union when I had returned to the UK and so I thought it was a lovely confirmation of that which I had already received, but God hadn’t even started.

The next day on Monday my aunty Marisa had text me saying she was going to publish the Go Fund Me page if I agreed with everything she had written, I said I’d take a look after I had taken the dogs out so it got put off a few hours. A year before my mum got ill, a friend of my aunty Marisa’s called Colin lost his wife and sold the house they had shared together. Colin wanted to do something with some of the money from the sale of the house and obediently asked The Lord if he could. The Lord said yes, but to put some money aside for Jesus. So Colin did. Around the time my mum went into hospital, Colin was in prayer with The Lord and He spoke saying ‘get ready, it’s time to spend some of that money for Jesus soon.’  Around a month later, on that Monday that we were about to publish the Go Fund Me page, in prayer The Lord told Colin it was time to spend that money for Jesus and to phone my mum’s sister, Marisa, and ask her how she was doing, Colin knew nothing of my mum’s death as he hadn’t been in touch with my aunty for a while. Colin phoned Marisa and asked her how she was. She replied that she was ok, but her sister had died and was in a fridge in the hospital in Lecce as they had no money for the funeral. Colin said ‘how does £6000 sound?’ It was an eleventh hour miracle from The Lord! He poured out his heavenly riches put aside by an obedient and prayerful saint. My phone was going whilst I was at the park with the dogs but I didn’t answer as we were covered in mud. When I finally got home expecting to have to read the page and wait, wondering if we would be able to bury my mum, I got news of the miracle. I love all of Jesus’ miracles, however great or small and this one was so sweet for our entire family.

With the miracle finances we were able to pay for my mum’s funeral and drive down to Italy later that Spring to collect the documents for the house and land.

Thank You Jesus!

Not long after my mum’s funeral, the prayers I had prayed whilst I was down there started coming to pass as The Lord revealed He would be sending us to minister in Italy and He wants to use the house and land for His glory. It is out of this story, full of God’s love and miracles that we have stepped out to serve Him fulltime on our new adventure.

Whether you have already found Him or are still searching, I pray that you experience His goodness and His love.

‘But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ Romans 5:8