Why SMI? Laniers love the community

Member Spotlight: Stanton Lanier evangelizes through beautiful music

Stanton Lanier and his family made the switch from health insurance to Samaritan Ministries when they recognized the expense was too great and the benefits too few to keep going the same route.

“We mainly wanted to save money because we were fairly healthy people and not going to have a medical need unless we had an emergency,” he said.

He learned about Samaritan Ministries through a former board member of his nonprofit organization, Music to Light the World, nearly 10 years ago.

The Laniers looked into several possibilities and decided on Samaritan. Now Stanton tells other people about Samaritan because “people think health insurance is the only way.”

“We were going to spend all this money for something we were not even using,” he said. “So, Samaritan really helped reduce our cost and, though it’s gradually increased over the years, we trust the Samaritan Board and the leadership team and the amazing dynamic of the funds that are shared and then the needs that are there and how the Lord takes care of them.”

Stanton and his wife, Lorie, hope to continue with the ministry for years to come because of its biblical values. They’ve experienced both the sending and receiving of Shares and have witnessed the impact of that.

“We love sending the Shares to other people with prayer and knowing who it’s for,” he said. “We had done that for many years, and then to be on the receiving end was amazing. People are thinking, ‘Well, does it really work?’ I think people are curious and a little skeptical and they shouldn’t be, but they just don’t have the experience to know, so we can tell people that it does work.”

Their favorite aspect of their Samaritan membership is the community.

“It’s not like we’re seeing people every day who are Samaritan members, but you do start to occasionally run into someone in your city or town,” he said. “I just think the sense of community with the overall membership is a witness to the Church. I mean, it’s the Kingdom, you know? It’s God’s Kingdom ways being played out and implemented in a service organization to love one another in Christ and serve one another and be a community of believers.”