{"id":2792,"date":"2014-07-07T11:55:22","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T17:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=2792"},"modified":"2014-07-07T11:58:35","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T17:58:35","slug":"mobile-missionary-reaching-many-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2014\/07\/mobile-missionary-reaching-many-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile missionary ‘reaching many people’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mission\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Dennis LaMotte stands next to his trailer, his mobile mission, in downtown Billings<\/p><\/div>\n

Dennis LaMotte\u2019s Jeep, trailer, canoe and bicycle are all painted in camouflage green, but the paint wouldn\u2019t hide it from the meter maids.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why he was looking to make change for a dollar when I ran into him Monday morning a couple of blocks east of the courthouse. He had to feed two meters to accommodate his mission on wheels.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am out here preaching the truth of the Gospel, which is the grace of God according to the revelation of the mystery dispensed to the Apostle Paul of the Gentiles,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s according to Acts 20:24.\u201d<\/p>\n

LaMotte said he was actually in Billings for two reasons: to continue the preaching that has taken him to 13 states in two years, and to look for his brother Donald, whom he hadn\u2019t seen in 45 years.<\/p>\n

He said he found out Monday morning, at the post office in Huntley, that his brother died last September. He was on his way to the courthouse to get his brother\u2019s death certificate.<\/p>\n

After that he planned to go out near Laurel, find a good campsite for his trailer and then spend a few days preaching at nursing homes in the Billings area. That\u2019s his \u201cmission field,\u201d he said, \u201cnursing homes across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

He goes to the homes in person, looks up the activities director and offers to preach. They usually invite him in, he said, unless they already have an evangelical chaplain. Such chaplains, he said, are not preaching the truth, \u201cthe finished word of Christ,\u201d because they want to appeal to people of all faiths.<\/p>\n

\"Bus\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

LaMotte, at the downtown bus transfer station.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThey seek union through compromise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

LaMotte said he felt called to missionary work years ago, but he didn\u2019t heed the call until 2012, when his wife was \u201cmurdered\u201d in a Texas hospital. He said he met her in Tennessee, where she had endured 52 years with an abusive husband.<\/p>\n

The years of abuse resulted in all kinds of heart trouble for her, leading to several bypass surgeries. At the hospital in Texas, he said, the authorities were simply tired of spending money on her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey withheld her medicine and watched her die in agony for 10 days,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the same as first-degree murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

After her death, he abandoned the house he was building in the desert, bought a trailer to pull behind his Jeep and hit the road. The bike and the canoe are for recreation, especially the canoe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a release valve when life gets a little hard and hectic,\u201d he said.

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n

\u201cI carry everything I own,\u201d he said. \u201cClothing, dry goods, canned goods.\u201d But he does not own a phone, a computer or a television.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want the lust of the flesh that\u2019s all over TV,\u201d he said. \u201cSatan uses these things to get your mind off the word of God. \u2026 I want my mind clear so I can think of spiritual things.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for a phone, LaMotte said he\u2019d rather spend his money printing Bible scrolls, handwritten teachings that he creates by taping sheets of paper together, rolling them up and tying them with yarn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m reaching many people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"LaMotte\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

LaMotte stands next to all his worldly possessions.<\/p><\/div>\n

As if to prove his point, a young man came up to LaMotte as we were speaking in the shade of the bus transfer station on Third Avenue North. As he chewed on a filled doughnut, he reminded LaMotte that he had met him a day earlier. He thanked LaMotte for giving him one of his scrolls.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t read that well, so I had a friend read your scroll to me,\u201d he said. \u201cI liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n

LaMotte said he is 71, a U.S. Marine who served from 1960 to 1964.<\/p>\n

\u201cVietnam broke loose after I got out,\u201d he said. He sometimes feels guilty about not re-enlisting, he said, because he heard his company took heavy casualties in the war. He\u2019s fighting a different battle now, to bring people to Christ. He doesn\u2019t know how long he\u2019ll continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have plans,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I\u2019m not so sure of the Lord\u2019s plans as yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dennis LaMotte\u2019s Jeep, trailer, canoe and bicycle are all painted in camouflage green, but the paint wouldn\u2019t hide it from the meter maids. That\u2019s why he was looking to make change for a dollar when I ran into him Monday morning a couple of blocks east of the courthouse. He had to feed two meters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[954,959,958,956,475,957,955],"class_list":["post-2792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-billings","tag-dennis-lamotte","tag-donald-lamotte","tag-huntley","tag-jeep","tag-laurel","tag-texas","tag-u-s-marine","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}