The Birth of a Promise: The Beginning of Ana’s House Women’s Ministry

 

Contrary to what many believe, the name Ana’s House was not born from a combination of my daughters’ names, Ana Cláudia and Annabelle. This house was born from heaven, from God’s heart to mine—and to the hearts of many other women.

It all began in 2017, when, during a season with my daughters in the United States, I attended a Christian women’s gathering. That night, Pastor Tânia Tereza, visiting from Brazil, preached about Hannah and Peninnah. It was the first time I had heard that powerful passage from the first book of Samuel, and I was deeply moved.

Hannah—the barren one, the favored one, the anguished one, but also the faithful one, the persevering one, the mother of the prophet Samuel. Hannah’s story is the story of so many women: misunderstood, distressed, but persistent in prayer until the promise is born. Hannah teaches us that faith must endure even through tears and that sincere cries before God can change destinies.

At the end of the sermon, the pastor made an altar call, and I went to the front of the church. Crying, I cried out to the Lord. I had left everything behind in Brazil—my career, my home, my friends, my comfort. I was there, immersed in doubts, not knowing why I was in a new country. At the altar, with my heart in tears, I asked, “Lord, what is my purpose here? I don’t even have a house to live in!” That’s when I heard, for the first time audibly, the voice of the Lord saying:

“You will have a house in this nation. But this house will be Mine. And I will entrust it to you to manage.”

I went back to my seat speechless. I cried all night, unable to fully understand what had happened. I slept for only forty minutes and had a dream: a large house, with a garden, rooms with tables and many chairs, bedrooms, and a big red front door.

When I woke up, I grabbed my phone—and there it was—the same house from my dream. I cried even more. When my daughter Ana Cláudia came into the room, I told her everything. She said:

“Mom, get dressed. Let’s go look for that house. If it’s God’s will and time, He will show us.”

We walked around the streets of Washington, DC, searching, but didn’t find it. Still, something had shifted within me.
That experience was just the beginning of a deep spiritual transformation marked by surrender and faith. I returned to Brazil, but nothing made sense anymore. The life I had once known no longer fulfilled me. I decided to take a sabbatical year. I joined YWAM CCL and served in missions in England, believing I would eventually spend four years in Kona, Hawaii. But God’s ways are higher and better than ours.

Yes, God had separated me for mission work—but my mission was my family. At the end of 2018, I returned to the United States, and during the pandemic, I devoted myself to caring for my daughter Ana Cláudia, her husband Pastor Carlos, and my grandson Lucas. When I arrived, Alice—our first miracle granddaughter—had been born three months earlier and was bravely fighting for her life. She was born at just 23 weeks, measuring 12 inches and weighing 1 pound. Nine months later, the Lord gave us another miracle: Pedrinho, born at 24 weeks, 13 inches long and weighing 1.4 pounds.

Through all of this, I understood my mission clearly: to serve my family with the same faith and dedication I would have had in any other nation, because God’s perfect will begins at home. Alice and Pedrinho, who once spent their first months of life in NICUs, sustained by ceaseless prayer, are now 6 and 7 years old, respectively. They are normal, healthy, joyful children—living testimonies that God is the Great Physician and performs miracles.

In 2020, I ended my journey in Brazil. I donated all my possessions—furniture, crystalware, silverware, paintings, etc.—each item with a specific instruction from God on who to bless with it.

Just as the Lord gave Moses the instructions for the tabernacle, He also revealed to me the details of the house I was to manage for Him: the number of rooms, their functions, and the name: Ana’s House Women’s Ministry.

With this clear calling, I was ready to move to the United States. At the Campinas airport, while waiting for my flight to Washington, DC—with six suitcases full of only clothes and shoes, no utensils, no furniture, no structure, but with a living faith in the Lord—I received a phone call from my brother: Our father was very ill and had been hospitalized.

I was completely devastated. I had been with him for the past forty days, and he had been fine… now, at the moment of my departure, he was hospitalized. In the airport lobby, in tears, I cried out to the Lord for direction. And then I heard His voice audibly once more:

“If you want to keep carrying suitcases back and forth like an executive, stay in Brazil. But if you want to follow Me, get on that plane and go to the United States of America.”

God’s promise was alive within me. I boarded that plane, confident that He would take care of my father—and He did. My father passed away four years later, after accepting the Lord as his Savior, and I had peace for obeying God’s voice.

In American soil, I began my journey. I moved into a small apartment that didn’t even have a chair. Yet I began to witness God’s move. Everything I had surrendered, He gave back to me double. As written in Job 42:10:

“After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before.”

Many nights, I fell asleep praying and crying out for direction. One afternoon, while drinking coffee on the balcony and watching deer graze, to the sound of the worship song Showers of Grace, I once again heard the voice of the Lord:
“Do exactly what you’ve always done: Welcome people.”

I had spent my life welcoming people—through politics, in the companies I worked for, in my home, in my office. Always around the table. That’s when I understood:

Ana’s House would begin at the table.
On October 17, 2020, the first Café com Relacionamento (Coffee with Connection) was born. Just a small group of women, but already the beginning of a great legacy.

Since then, testimonies have multiplied. Today, I’m married to Pastor Wellington Rangel, a man of God who walks with me in this calling.

We have seven grandchildren—Benjamin, Lucas, Bernard, Alice, Pedro, Eliza, and Dominik—and we live in a rented house. Although it’s not yet the one with the red door, we have remained faithful to the purpose God entrusted to us.

Our home is always open—for worship services, mentoring, coffee gatherings, meetings, classes, and events. We welcome women, families, neurodivergent mothers, girls, wives, widows, and leaders. We fulfill the mission God gave us: to welcome and transform lives.

As written in Jeremiah 29:11:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I believe that the project on paper—with the great red door—will be fulfilled at the appointed time. Because the Lord has promised. And God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should change His mind (Numbers 23:19).
Ana’s House was born from my cry at the altar.

And today, it is a ministry that echoes that same cry in other women:
“Lord, use my life, my home, and my heart for You.”