How a Small Christian Ministry Stood Up to Government Tyranny
Jim and Tricia of Daniel Chapter One at the prison, May 2016, reunited after three months apart. Jim got out in Aug 2016, and was on house arrest with a monitoring device until Feb 2017.
By Fred Comella
Many of you who’ve read my writing apart from “The Good News Today” know of my passion for our national history, and how from the time of the separatists through the world changing events of the 18th Century, and on to present day, we’ve been steadily drifting from the “original intent” of the Founders. Our great nation is but a shadow of what it once was and declining faster than any of us might have imagined.
Now we can certainly argue the causes as there are many to be sure. And we can pit ideologies, one against the other, for the sake of debate or to hear ourselves talk. But one thing is certain, everything we know, everything we are as a people has been hard fought by way of triumph and trial, and always accompanied by a prayerful plea to our creator to watch over us as we pushed forward. In good times and bad, the ties which have bound us together have always been a “Declaration” of the self-evident truths of God’s world, and a “Constitution” that would memorialize those truths for all people, here and around the globe.
Accordingly, I do argue with people almost daily about why this is important and why this changing world is precisely the reason we must stay the course and hold fast to that which defines us. I remind them that the forces of evil are working tirelessly to remove God from our society and wage total war on accountability of any kind, and even using our means of government to do it. Yes folks, Lincoln was correct. We are dying from within, and the people we send to represent our best interest in the halls of government are betraying those interests.
Our government agencies look nothing like they were intended, and have become bloated bureaucracies tended by the Lois Lerner’s among us. Voter Complacency and the corruption which takes hold in the petri dish of lobbies and politics are consuming “original intent” like a spreading virus, leaving in their wake some good and decent citizens working to make our lives better. The “pursuit” of happiness has now become the promise of it, and to “promote the general welfare” is now seen as to provide it. Combined with the relentless attack on God’s natural family, and the revision of a simple and identifiable true history, these types of missteps, intentional or otherwise, have emboldened a political class to fill the void and gather onto themselves, power so dangerous in its size and ugly in its application, that men like Adams and Jefferson would have supported war against it, much as they did in the days leading up to the separation from Great Britain.
Words like “establishment”, “bureaucracy” and “overreach” are fitting of the times, and the country my dad and so many others fought for seems to be slipping away from us. But for we who are watching closely, the election of this populist president has awakened a people discouraged and forgotten, but no longer silent. And for the first time in recent memory, a reckless and seemingly “untouchable” political class are once again answerable to those who send them there. But there is still a very long way to go. We have drifted far my friends, and I’ve come to realize the road back will require much more than a mortal in the White House with good intentions. It will require a lot of prayer, and Christ…
Anyway, when we talk about government bureaucracies, there is none like that of healthcare in the 21st Century which inspires more vigorous and even vitriolic debate. The “Affordable” Care Act is but one aspect of a broken system, hobbled by corruption and political intrusion, and with any interference in so-called “mainstream medicine” being seen as a threat which must invite the most aggressive response. In fact, for Christians guided by faith in all times of trial, to include illness and the “homeopathic” application of that which God has given unto us naturally for the purpose of the care of our individual health, are often seen as grievous threats to an entrenched and unbelieving government and medical industry lobby. Reasonable science has been usurped for the sake of profit and control, and entire governmental agencies have been built and empowered to keep all threats at bay. This is the story of one such struggle between liberty as it was intended in a republic under law, and the power of some in government who’ve lost sight of the Constitution they swore to defend.
Patricia Feijo worked in Experimental Oncology as a lab technician at Mason Research in Worcester, Massachusetts for several years after graduating high school in 1976. “A recovering Catholic”, (hey that’s my line), “Tricia” got saved as a sophomore in college, where she studied to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a writer. But God had other plans for Tricia. Forsaking the professional career in writing she prayed about, but acknowledging her future husband Jim’s advice, in that she need not have a degree to write, Tricia left school and married Jim in 1983. Jim, a saved believer himself, suggested that Tricia feed her veracious appetite for knowledge by reading the Word of God.
Tricia did just that, becoming intimately familiar with scripture, and more specifically how the Word of God related to healing the sick. With her background in cancer research, (and also like me) having witnessed those closest to her die from a disease which shows mercy to no one, she and Jim were compelled by that tug of the heart I write of often, to begin a ministry in 1986, and ultimately co-found “Daniel Chapter One” (DCO) a health and healing ministry to support house churches in communist countries. That outreach would eventually find its way home, where it would grow exponentially with Tricia and Jim touching the lives of so many with their work in the field of homeopathic treatments for cancer and other debilitating diseases. Their story of success would come to personify the aforementioned in this article, in a showdown between free people offering hope through faith and alternatives to the so-called science of medicine, and a government bent on stopping them for reasons far beyond just the law. Tricia would chronicle this fight in a book recently published appropriately named, “Called to Stand”.
The ministry and healing network was growing at an astonishing pace and Tricia wrote a weekly newspaper column of health advice in the 90’s entitled “Wise and Simple”. She presented DCO’s approach to natural healing and Homeopathy before various groups including graduate nurses at SMU Dartmouth. She co-hosted the Daniel Chapter One Health Watch radio program for 18 years, and guested on other nationally syndicated radio programs and local television. She would return to school and ultimately graduate from The New England School of Homeopathy in 1993, and study with homeopaths Ananda Zaren and Vassilas Ghegas. In 2000 she began advanced studies with Dr. Luc De Schepper at the Renaissance Institute of Classical Homeopathy, and edited his master work “Achieving and Maintaining the Simillimum. Many of her cases have been published online for the global e-journal “Homeopathy 4 Everyone.”
Offering alternative treatment for the scourge of cancer, Tricia and her husband had developed natural dietary supplements that cured cancer and other infirmities, (with testimony from clients). But the U.S. government said no way, and without so much as a single consumer complaint in thirty years, or evidence of any harm, pulled the proverbial plug on them.
Admittedly, I have little knowledge of faith healing and/or homeopathic therapy except to say that I have discussed it on occasion with folks, including the editor of this publication. And my editors call to write this article is the first I’ve heard of the Feijo’ s story. With that said, my own experience, watching both of my parents die more from the chemo and radiation treatment for their respective cancers as opposed to the disease itself, and in light of now knowing the truth as I do, one could not wish for a more attentive audience on the matter such as I.
So, I had an opportunity to speak with Tricia Feijo about her recent book publication highlighting she and her husband Jim’s struggle with the government sworn to protect their rights, but which would ultimately trample them and destroy all their hard work. “Called to Stand” has met with great reviews and chronicles this fight which should never have been, and a path no decent and free American should ever have to walk.
Jim and Trish, broadcasting their live daily radio program “Health Watch” from the Daniel Chapter One headquarters in Portsmouth, R.I.
Though it will be impossible for me to encapsulate all of what is in this incredible book in just these short paragraphs, suffice it to say, Tricia and Jim never saw it coming. From the raid on their Portsmouth Rhode Island home/business (Daniel Chapter One), in the presence of their grandchild, and using tactical entry and search applications right out of the “Patriot Act”, and which one would assume were reserved for armed and dangerous drug traffickers and gang kingpins, to the seizure of their homeopathy files and customer affidavit testimonies (some with medical records), the Feijo’s were stunned and appalled at the extraordinary invasion of their privacy, as DCO had always been an extension of their home. Moreover, throughout the years, Tricia told me she and Jim had strived to always be in compliance with all applicable laws as they pertained to disclaimers and other legal terminology having to do with the sale of alternative remedies, albeit completely natural and in concert with God’s nature.
Throughout our two-hour discussion, this woman whom I almost felt I knew, broke my heart time and again with a story right out of television. Hollywood could not have written a script so bitter sweet. Complete with a frustrated bureaucracy and legal system trying desperately to find cause via a wider and wider casting of the net, I kept thinking of Sampson and Goliath. I sat amazed, (and horrified), on the phone as she told of prosecutors and agencies like the FTC, FDA, CDC and the IRS bringing to bear the full weight of the U.S. Government upon them in order to “send a message” as one local judge would later say at her husband’s sentencing.
After years of legal wrangling, Tricia and Jim stood their ground in court before an impatient judge seeking what sounded more to me like obedience rather than justice, trusting in God to guide them. They stood on principle and a record of caring and healing they simply could never deny. Many with whom they’d shared their services spoke out on their behalf but were ultimately denied a right to speak in their defense in court, signifying a forgone conclusion from the outset, and a representative government gone off the rails. “They crucified Jesus (and His disciples after Him) to silence the truth. Romans 10:14” There was even a letter disavowing the validity of their treatments as a means to reconcile the “fact” that only “scientifically” proven methods of cancer treatment were the answer for sick people, (chemo-radiation), a letter which both Jim and Tricia were given the option to sign to make all things good. One final card played by the system with the optional suggestion buried deep within the formalities, took the proceedings right down to the last minute.
In the end, an aging Jim Feijo would be remanded to prison for six months with six months of probation. The state prosecutors were obviously emboldened to a “higher authority” and the original plea offer of no jail time was no longer on the table. Since Jim’s release, the Feijo’s have not only had their successful business and ministry closed, but just for good measure, the powers that be also inflicted the finishing blow by levying every possible federal fine imaginable upon them, thus effectively taking the Feijo’s out of the picture forever.
But God will not be silenced, and it is He who is the ultimate authority, not the U.S. Government, or any government for that matter. The word is out, and “Called to Stand” sets the record straight. In these ever-changing times, it is good to know He is there, and that His will be done. It’s also good to know, that as we appear to be pivoting yet again as a nation, this time, away from the eight year awakening of the era of big government, people are beginning to want their government back. Thank you Jesus, for your mercy and grace going forward, and also for those who are “called to stand” …
Please pray for Tricia and Jim as Jim is in ill health of late, and their struggles with federal authorities continues today. Also please make every effort to purchase and read this book. It will educate and enlighten you. These are certainly not the times to be ignorant. Called to Stand is available through Amazon, WND Books and other outlets.
Merry Christmas to all of you. May God bless and keep you…And Merry Christmas to you Tricia. Turns out He did “fulfill your true desires” according to His will…
