longer satisfied him and he felt a desire to see Africa, and possibly give his life as a martyr through working to free Christians enslaved there. He immediately set out for the Portuguese territory of Ceuta (located on the northern coast of Africa). On the way, he befriended a Portuguese knight also traveling there with his wife and daughters, who was being exiled to that region by the King of Portugal for some crime he had committed. When they arrived in the colony, the knight found that the few possessions the family had been able to take with them had been stolen, leaving them penniless. Additionally the entire family had become ill. Having no other recourse, the knight appealed to Cidade for his help. He promised to care for the family, and began to nurse them and found work to provide them with food, despite the poor treatment poor citizens received at the hands of the colony's rulers. The desertion of one of Cidade's coworkers to a nearby Muslim city in order to escape this treatment, which meant his conversion to that faith, led to a growing feeling of despair in him. Troubled and feeling spiritually lost from his failure to practice his faith during his years of military service, he went to the Franciscan friary in the colony. There he was advised that his desire to be in Africa was not working to his spiritual growth and that he should consider returning to Spain. He decided to do this. Landing in Gibraltar, he began to wander around the region of Andalusia, trying to find what God might want from him. It was during this period of his life that Cidade is said to have had a vision of the Infant Jesus, who bestowed on him the name by which he was later known, John of God, also directing him to go to Granada. Cidade then settled in that city, where he worked disseminating books, using the recent moveable type printing press of Johannes Gutenberg to provide people with works of chivalry and devotional literature. Conversion Cidade experienced a major religious conversion on Saint Sebastian's Day (January 20) of 1537, while listening to a sermon by John of Ávila, a leading preacher of the day who was later to become his spiritual director and would encourage him in his quest to improve the life of the poor. At the age