here are some refs for LAH-less reductions of amides
1)Tetrahedron Letters no. 10, pp. 763-66, 1976-Sodium Acyloxyborohydrides as New Reducing agents, Reduction of Carboxamides to the corresponding amines; Umnio, Takeo & Itoh
2) Unusual Reactivity of Zinc Borohydride; Synthetic Communications, 27(3), 391-394, 1997; Narasimhan, Madhavan, Balakumar & Swarnalakshmi
3) Convenient Methods for the Reduction of Amides, Nitriles, Carboxylic esters, Acids and hydroboration of Alkenes using NaBH4/I2 system; Tetrahedron vol 48 No22 pp 4623-8, 1992, Prasad, Bhaskar, & Periasamy.
As for making amides from carboxylic acids, is there something different in this case that would make it more difficult than making acetamide from acetic acid as per the methylamine faq?