Itinerant preacher: Lamson funds ministry through investment brokerage
When Donald Lamson told his wife he wanted to go to seminary, she told him to go to his room.
Bettina Lamson came around after a while, however, and now fully supports her husband’s ministry. “I was completely not believing that it would work out the way it does,” she said.
Lamson, 46, has spent the last nine years ministering at Lake View Care Center in Bigfork. That takes place when he’s not on the road, however.
Lamson funds his ministry through his investment brokerage business, which takes up half of his time.
It wasn’t that way at the beginning of his ministry. Lamson felt a call to the ministry after his best friend died from brain cancer. Lamson had attended an independant Baptist seminary in Tennessee and then started a church in Medford, N.J.
One day while he and a friend from seminary were pushing a car while dressed in a suit and dress shoes, his friend told him that the leather shoes they were wearing were made only for walking on carpet. With that came the realization that Lamson needed to change his attire and approach to ministry.
“We just meet people where they are,” he said. “I can’t wear my preaching shoes pushing a car. I don’t wear them anymore.”
Lamson now wears Merrells and ministers in a variety of venues including NASCAR races, blueberry fields and veterans’ homes. Lamson bought a pair of Merrells and then found out that version had been discontinued. He went back and purchased six identical pairs, Bettina, 44, said.
At the church he pastored in New Jersey, Lamson allowed a Vietnam veteran with one arm to play the piano. That didn’t go over well with some of the faithful, however, so he decided to move on, literally. The next step was to Montana. The Lamsons’ daughter Courtney then age 8, was working on a school project about the Treasure state. Lamson decided to do some research about Montana on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website. Of all the Montana towns, he found that Bigfork had the highest average temperature in the winter and the lowest in the summer. He then plugged the 59911 zip code into Realtor.com and found a house on Stage Ridge Road that he purchased sight unseen.
The Lamsons first visited Bigfork in 2002. He had just driven 44 hours from New Jersey when he pulled into town and saw a sign that said, “Christ died for you. Will you live for Him?” It touched his heart. Several times in subsequent days he walked by Lake View Care Center and God convicted his heart. That led to a contact with Will Lantis, the care center’s former owner.
The Lamsons lived in Bigfork full-time for four years before Lamson decided to put his investment business on the road. He has made trips to NASCAR races and ministered to Haitian migrant workers in New Jersey blueberry fields. “I try to help those who have been forgotten or fallen through the cracks,” he said. After the 2001 attacks on New York City the Lamsons met a well-dressed gentleman at a shopping mall. Bettina started talking with the man and found out that he was displaced as a result of the terrorist strike on the Twin Towers. They let him live with them for a month.
Lamson has ministered to truck drivers at truck stops. “We meet people where they are,” he said. “We’re trying to do what Jesus did.”
Lamson has a degree in mechanical engineering but has given up that line of work in favor of selling investments and ministry. “I got trapped in a cubicle. I got tired of it,” he said, although he notes that his degree helps him work on his son’s motorcycle.
In addition to conducting Wednesday services at Lake View Care Center, Lamson gives home Bible studies, ministers at family reunions, funerals, weddings and hospitals. He even makes house calls. “It astounds me every time how God works,” he said. “I guess that’s what my investment business has proven. You’ve got to be diversified.”
Their children Courtney, 16, and Evan, 10, are home-schooled. “I drive 100,000 miles a year,” Lamson said. He meets people “kneecap to kneecap,” as he calls it, advising them on how to save for retirement. The whole family travels together, although their daughter Lauren, 19, recently started working as a certified nurse’s aid at Lake View Care Center.
“It’s fun because we go everywhere as a family,” Courtney said.
“It is hard to be away, but we do it for a good reason,” Lauren said. She will stay home when the family hits the road now, however. Sarah Diller plays the piano for Lake View residents when the Lamsons are gone.
Lamson is on his third Honda Odyssey van. The first two got over 300,000 miles. Donald and Bettina were each driving one when Donald’s broke down in Hagerstown, Md., “right at an exit at a Honda dealer,” Bettina said. “We traded in both of them. God gave us favor with the Honda owner.”
Although they travel quite a bit, the Lamsons are invested in the Bigfork community. In fact, they built their own house next door to the one Donald bought online 11 years ago. The couple did everything themselves except for the laying the foundation and building the chimney.
The family reads the Bible together every day, Lamson said. His website is allthatmatters.org.