Greetings!

I am Roger Schwartz, the senior visitation pastor here at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.  I’ve been serving this congregation since December 2001.  My wife, Jean, and I have been married 47 years and we reside in Little Canada.

We have three children. Lisa, our daughter, is vice president at Questar, a marketing research company.  She lives in Shoreview with husband Merrill and two children, Micah and Michaela.  Our oldest son, Brad, is a family practice physician in Sandpoint, ID where he lives with wife Patty and sons Ryan, Nathan and Ben.  Dan, our youngest son, lives in St. Paul where he operates a lawn maintenance service.

I retired in 1999 after 30 years of parish ministry in rural, city and suburban congregations.  My last call was to House of Prayer Lutheran church in Oakdale.  I served there 20 years.  After a year of travel and rest, I was blessed to become part of the staff of St. Paul Lutheran here in Stillwater.

My duties include calling on some 35 shut-in senior members monthly.  We encourage each other in the faith and share the sacrament of Holy Communion.  Once a month I meet with the Senior Advisory Committee where we strategize to serve the seniors of the church in many ways.  Some events are the Ageless Dinners on the first Sunday each month, as well as a senior communion luncheon each spring and fall.  I occasionally participate in  the Sunday worship services.

I am a 25 year veteran as a singer with the St. Paul Swedish Male Chorus. 

I’ve always had a love for foreign missions.  In 1992 I was privileged to make an Arctic ski trip into the Russian province of Chukotka where I conducted the first Lutheran worship service after the fall of the Soviet Union.

More recently my wife and I have made four trips to Iringa, Tanzania where we encourage the local congregations there.  Most recently, St. Paul Lutheran Church began a partnership with Mgama Parish in rural Iringa.  My wife, granddaughter, four ladies from St. Paul Lutheran and I visited the Pairsh in February 2008. 

Here at home we help African refugees and poverty families in the Twin Cities obtain adequate clothing and furnishings.  St. Paul’s members and friends have been of great help in this mission!

We also are part of an organization called St. Paul Water Partners which specializes in providing clean safe water for the villages of Iringa, TZ.  Thus far, we have completed 66 wells which serve some 30,000 persons and reduced greatly the water-borne diseases of the area.  The current goal is 100 wells by 2009.

My hobbies are travel, Canadian fishing, puttering at my cabin in the woods, and most recently, rock collecting with my grandkids.