Paul Rowold retires after 20 years at Good Shepherd Lutheran
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(Editor's note: The spelling on Rowold was edited Jan. 26.)
POLSON – After 20 years, the Rev. Paul Rowold is calling it quits.
Rowold is retiring as pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Sunday, Jan. 29, will be his last day.
The Polson Ministerial Association hosted a retirement party for Rowold at the church last week.
After the party, Rowold said he’s retiring because he will be turning 65 on Jan. 31.
One could say that he was an active pastor during his time in Polson.
Rowold said that he and his wife, Donna, who has served as a music minister at the church, plan to live in the area for nine months a year. They plan to go scuba diving in Curacao, an island 40 miles north of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea, in the near future.
in 2004 Rowold was instrumental in helping to start the Helping Hands organization, a non-profit that offers social assistance for the needy.
During his time in Polson, he has also made 34 trips to Israel with either a group of adults or youth. More than 1,000 people have taken the trips, he said.
The youth trips typically involve the group doing manual labor for Palestinian Christians, although they traveled to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, last year too.
“Taking high school youth is a profound experience for them. Touching the birthplace of their faith goes beyond words,” Rowold said as he reflected on the various trip photos that line a hallway at the church at 409 Fourth Ave. East.
“There is a tenacity and a wisdom that comes through decades of oppression that I value and learn so much from each time I’m there,” he said of his trips to the “Holy Land.”
The trips have been done under the auspices of Partnership Pilgrimages, which facilitated a partnership between Good Shepherd Lutheran and a Christian congregation in Bethlehem. That effort will be taken over by Rowald’s daughter, Katie Rowold, and her husband, Elias Rowold, a Palestinian Christian who took his wife’s name at marriage — and they may take it in a different direction, Rowold said.
Although he won’t be pastoring anymore, Rowold said he will still be around.
“Maybe you’ll hear me say, ‘Welcome to Walmart’ in a few months,” he joked.
