Pastor Pam

Here, in the heart of Missouri, where the soil is rich and the lives of the people are steeped in simplicity and tradition, lives a woman whose calling was not to the fields, but to the souls that till them. Pam Sebastiaßn, or “Pastor Pam,” as she is known, serves two churches in two towns that dot the map like seeds scattered by the hand of God. One a simple, modest house of worship, the other a glorious testament to time and history built by hands that knew the ache of labor. They are places where faith was not a matter of show, but of survival…

Well, that was true then–back in 2006 when I met Pam during my first cross-country trip. Today she is more a “circuit rider,” type pastor. She rotates among three different churches. She no longer has a formal office and works out of her home.

What hasn’t changed is that her life of service and dedication to others is really where the idea for the Hope & Generosity Tour started. I figured there must be hundreds, thousands, or more people just like her whose stories go unsung and whose lives are simply a quiet testament to the resilience and power of hope and generosity. 

Pam is a formidable woman with character to match. Her voice can be as gentle as a lullaby or as firm as a plow breaking the earth. She is tireless in her devotion, moving between the two towns with the rhythm of the seasons, never lingering too long in one place, lest one flock feel abandoned. Her days often began before dawn, when the world is still bathed in the cool darkness, and end long after the stars have taken their place in the heavens.

I figured there must be hundreds, thousands, or more people just like
her whose stories go unsung and whose lives are simply a quiet testament
to the resilience and power of hope and generosity. 

She is always “on,” as the saying goes. There is never a moment when she is not ready to listen, to comfort, to guide. In a world where people often felt the weight of their burdens too heavy to bear, she is the rock they lean on. She is there at every birth, every death, and every moment in between that make up the fabric of life in these small towns. The people love her for it, though they seldom see the toll it takes on her.

For Pam, this calling is not just a duty but a consuming fire. It burns within her, pushing her beyond the limits of her strength. She can go days without adequate rest, her mind a constant whirl of sermons yet unwritten, prayers yet spoken. The people see her as unshakable, but they do not see the nights when she sits alone in the dark, her hands trembling from exhaustion, her heart heavy with the weight of others’ sorrows.

Yet, she doesn’t complain. She believes that to serve is to sacrifice, and she does so willingly, though it means burning the candle at both ends. Her life is a testament to the quiet heroism that often goes unnoticed in small towns across America. She is the embodiment of grace under pressure, a lighthouse in the storm of life that the people clung to.

In the end, it was not the large gestures, but the small, steady acts of love and faith that define her. She is a woman who gives all of herself, leaving little behind for her own needs. And in the silent hours of the night, when the world sleeps, she prays not for herself, but for the strength to keep going, to be the rock her people need, one day at a time.