Here is another segment in the story that the Lord is unfolding. I just
learned of your website today, or was reminded of it again. Please feel free
to post this testimony if you so desire. Since this was written, I have
continued to grow with the Lord. My standing with probation is very good.
There have been no violations. They are very lenient, yet working withing
their parameters. THat means I have to obtain written permission to leave
the county. Each time I have made a request, with only two exceptions, they
have allowed me to travel anywhere within the USA. As it stands today, I
have 3 1/2 years left to serve on probation. I am working on presenting a
request to the judge to dismiss the remaining amount of time. Please pray
that I will have wisdom and guidance and that the judge will be favorable.

"The Hand That Still Intervenes"

God has told us through the Word, the Bible, that there would always be trials in this life. Rather than taking the trials away from us, He promised us that He would always be there to help us through them. This testimony you
are about to read is true in every respect, and covers a span of time of about two and a half years. It all started on August 8th 2000 when a man from Louisiana came to our home who was critically ill with cancer. They
were hoping that he would make it to his next birthday, which was five days away. He knew he did not have much time to live, an the doctors said there was not anything more they could do to him. The mans concubine signed a release form in the event the man died and that they would not hold Joyce liable for trying to help. When he did die she (the man's live in for 18 years) did every thing she could to put Joyce in the worst pos ition she could. It was what the deputy told me at the hospital the night the man died that made my stomach turn. He said..."she's an opportunist". While to another person he told, "she is a business woman." I couldn't really understand why she was doing this after she had just signed the consent and release of liability papers the very same day... When the $5,000,000.00 civil suit was filed, then it all fell into place. She was as the deputy had said "an opportunist". Her actions had proved it, by deliberately trying to destroy someone for ersonal profit.

After eight days of trial that ended on February 17, 2002 the jury found my wife Joyce guilty of second-degree manslaughter. Many of us were very surprised at the outcome. Although the testimony by Dr. Brady the Oregon
State Medical Examiner, as Tom interviewed him on the witness stand, concluded that the deceased's final round of experimental chemotherapy is what damaged the kidneys to the point of imminent death. Bear in mind the deceased's liver weighed five times more than that of a normal person's liver due to the cancer. Not to mention he had cancer in his lungs, stomach, pancreas, and nearly his entire entire large colon was removed about a year earlier. At that time his doctors had given him about six months to live. Nevertheless she was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter. This only proves that you do not, as an individual have the right to choose with whom, or what type of treatment you prefer.

Upon leaving the courtroom after hearing the conviction, I walked over to the big bay windows that overlooked the Cowlitz River. While shuddering to think of what the outcome would be, I was approached by the newsman that was covering the story. He asked me "is there anything you would like to say?"

I simply told him "There is a God in Heaven that we still trust", and then I turned my back to him and walked away. All this was printed on the front page of the newspaper the following day.

In approximately three weeks from the last day of trial, on March 4th 2002, was to begin the civil trial for $5,000,000.00 for Joyce's so called part in this man's death. For some reason without explanation the trial was dropped. Now we waited the sentencing hearing that was to take place on the 14th of April. She was sentenced to 90 days in jail and five years of probation.

Now it is toward the end of the summer of 2002 after spending 60 days in jail Joyce received a notice from the opposing party that the $5 million civil suit trial was scheduled for four days from Monday October 13th through Thursday the 16th after already going through a debtor's exam with her, prior to the trial, showing them that she had no assets left. Her attorney (Tom) from the very beginning had told her that there was nothing that he could do for her in the civil suit. With a four-day trial scheduled and knowing Joyce didn't have anything left, it was pretty obvious to us, they may be coming after the house and the property that I owned before we were married.

After discharging Tom, we contacted Remedies At Law, and Glen Stoll a non-barred lawyer and his assistant Demelza Love in Edmonds, Washington. All this was done about five weeks before this trial was to take place. So there we were, near the end of September, now, about two weeks before the trial, facing a $5 million civil suit and an $18,000 attorney bill with very little money to speak of and with a non barred lawyers that could not stand up in court and speak for us.

I was downstairs with my Bible praying to the Lord, (this was probably the lowest point of my life) and I said, "Why are we going through all these problems?" (See Judges 6:13-16) and I said to God in a lamentable voice, "I would like for you to speak to me." In doing so I took my Bible in both hands placing both thumbs on the pages in the front of the Bible and randomly opened it. My eyes fell upon this one verse as though they were drawn to it. It was in Isaiah chapter one and verse five. The first sentence of the verse was all I could read, and it said.... "Why should ye be stricken any more?" ...It was a question that I had on my mind for many
months trying to understand the reality of this whole situation..."Why should ye be stricken any more? ".... As the final two weeks for the trial drew near, we filed a "foreign plea of abatement" which consisted of a coun
ter suit with libelous statements made by the opposing attorney, and bringing the other parties to living up to their responsibilities that they trying to blame on Joyce.

On Monday morning October 13th, 2002, a clear and sunny day, we drove to the hall of injustice both of us deep in thought not saying much to each other. While I was deep in thought reliving the drive we made the day of the sentencing just four months earlier, where Joyce would be abruptly taken from me and put in jail for the next sixty days. Her only crime was to give a little hope to a man whose doctor highly suggested to the family that they take him to Hospice to die for there was nothing more they could do to him.... He died as expected. She got the blame.... We pulled in the parking lot. We went inside choosing to walk rather than taking the elevator. We went upstairs and walked over to the docket, a small white-board hanging on the wall, we came to the first board looking at the 9:00 a.m. schedule, the one that would say Stewart Vs. Brown. Nothing on this one , then to the next looking more anxiously. There was nothing there. Then to the third, there was nothing there either. Then to the fourth, then the fifth. These last two rooms would be the least likely for the trial to be held in... nothing there either. Seeing there must have been a mistake, for we had heard nothing of any cancellation, Joyce went into the County clerk's office to find out what had happened. She was in there for about ten minutes. No one seemed to know what had happened. After the clerk made a couple of calls, Joyce came out with a smile on her face. She said they dropped the law suit... choked up as I was I found it very hard to say anything except "praise the Lord" Then came to my mind the words I read from Isaiah just two weeks
previously...."Why should ye be stricken any more?".

A couple of months passed from the time Joyce got out of jail and as the attorney fees continued to increased to finally $18,360.00. Every month the bill would come in and she would open the letters then file them in the
proper place then the next one would come, and then the next, and the next.

Then one day in early January 2003 a friend of ours, Don Mattson, from Montana called on the phone, suggesting to Joyce that she write a letter, and he also would write a letter making an appeal to those on her mailing list if they would be interested in helping with the legal fees. The two letters were sent out. In the meantime while out in the orchard pruning the fruit trees I managed to poke myself in the eye with a stick leaving a red streak along the side of my good eye. We went to our doctor friend in Vancouver to have it looked at and got something for it. While we were there we stopped in our attorney's office which was about two blocks away, hoping he was there we could discuss what we could do about this ominous bill hanging over us. He was not there but his secretary listened to our plight with great interest and said she would pass it on to Tom when he came in.

In the meantime later that month and early February Joyce and I were planning to be at a pastor's Promise Keepers meeting in Phoenix, Arizona on and about February 20th to pass out literature to those attending the
meeting. There were several people who came from Tennessee and North Carolina, and other states for the same reason. We were gone from home nearly three weeks, traveling to and from Arizona and stopping in California to see our son and daughter- in -law. So upon arriving at home towards the end of the month of February we gathered our mail from the post office from the past nearly three weeks, and of course there was that grim reminder from the attorney's office. Unlike the other times where she would open the envelope and file the document in its proper place, this time she put the unopened letter in the file and let it go at that. As tax time drew near er Joyce started gathering all the papers that we needed for filing our annual taxes, which are due on April 15th. While gathering the monthly statements from the attorney's office, she then opened the only letter that was filed that she had not taken out of the envelope and there, to our surprise there was this letter enclosed which read: "If you can pay within ten days, I will cut your bill by 50%" which would have reduced the $18,000+ to around $9000.

After opening and reading the letter nearly a month later and looking at the postmark on the letter, we received the letter about two days after we left for Arizona and at this late a date there was nothing that we could do about it, seeing the ten days had long passed. I can tell you right now that I was pretty upset that we missed an opportunity to save over $9000.00. But never the less I asked Joyce to call Tom and maybe we could make an appointment and talk this over. So on Thursday afternoon some time in early April we spent about an hour in his office talking everything over, and at the conclusion of our meeting he said that on the following Monday he would write us a letter in response to our conversation. I figured the letter would come Wednesday at the earliest and by Friday for sure. We would go to the mailbox with great hopes but there was no letter. The se days came and went, but while during this time over the past three months, the response from the people wanting to donate to our legal fund kept trickling in. The next week came and went, still no response from Tom. Three weeks had passed, and not a word. At this time Joyce and I had previously made plans for the
weekend to go to a Historic convocation at Rufus, Oregon along the Columbia River. This was greatly needed for all the stress that had consumed our lives over the past two years. After the convocation was over we drove the three hours it would take to get home. We arrived at home early Sunday morning about 1:00 a.m. stopping and getting out of the van to unlock the gate to get down the driveway and while there I retrieved the mail of the
past two days from the mail box and in the midst of the letters, magazines and ads, was this letter from Tom which we anxiously opened. In it he had reconsidered the first offer he had made knowing that we didn't have the money to pay it any way. His offer was in two parts, 1, was to make payments on $10,000.00 with no interest until paid, or pay $5,000.00 cash within the next ten days. By this time the donations were coming in from the appeal sent out in January, all this came to just a little under $4,000.00 and with a previous donation of a $1,000 from a very good friend of ours who lives in Portland Oregon. and with Tom's generosity in lowering his fee again to nearly a half of what the previous offer was we were able to give him the $5000 he was willing to settle for. The $18,360.00 attorney's fee and the $5,000,000.00 civil suit had vanished into thin air.... Then the words from Isaiah came to me again... "Why should ye be stricken any more"...

In Jeremiah 23:29 it say's "Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces"?

In concluding, we want to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of our hearts for your prayers and contributions. It took every one of you, and to some of you I know it was a great sacrifice to step out in faith in
making God's promise come to pass, I know he touched your hearts...

We are very grateful to all of you,
Roger and Joyce Brown