LifeDate Fall 2024 – Hope and a Future
by Pastor Scott Licht
Why travel halfway around the world to serve orphans and do mission work when there is such a great need right here at home? After completing my tenth trip to India, I still get asked that question quite often.
Let me introduce you to Pastor Swenkumar Pulavarthi—Swen, for short (although you would never mistake him for being Scandinavian if you saw him). Swen is in his mid-forties. He and his wife, Aruna, have been married almost 20 years, and they were finally blessed with a daughter, Hannah Faith, six years ago. Swen serves a congregation in Rapaka, Andhra Pradesh, India, where Sunday morning attendance often approaches 100 souls. Swen also serves as District President for about 120 Lutheran congregations in east central Andhra Pradesh.
Swen and Aruna also serve as “parents” to 20 orphans living in an “orphanage”—two three-bedroom apartments in a seven-story building. The children, equally divided between male and female, range in age from eight years to fourteen years old. Like their peers who live elsewhere in Tanuku, they attend the local public schools. They study Telugu (the local language), English, math, physical education, etc. They have quizzes, tests, and daily homework. They have best friends, play pranks, and have career aspirations.
The children wake at 5:00 a.m. for Bible study and devotion. That is followed by assigned chores of laundry, cleaning the apartment, or helping to cook breakfast. After school, they play in the open area on the roof of their apartment building, do homework together, or just hang out until supper and devotion before bedtime.
All of these children have been given the gift of faith through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is at work on their peers—all 1.4 billion of them. Jesus died for the sins of these children and their peers. God desires that these children and their peers will spend eternity with Him in heaven.
The orphans being served suffer from many life issues: homelessness, food insecurity, and lack of parents to name a few. There are many other life issues being faced by the adults of the area: alcoholism, domestic abuse, human trafficking, poverty, and suicide are some of the major ones.
So why do I travel halfway around the world to serve orphans and do mission work when there is such a great need right here at home?
Because that’s what God has called me to do, and He gives me the resources to carry out that calling.
In my work at Lutherans For Life, God has equipped me to help the pastors and lay people in the area address the life issues being faced by the adults (and children). On each trip I spend several days leading conferences for pastors, lay people, and youth, teaching them what the Bible says about the sanctity of life and the specific issues that they face.
In my work as a pastor, God has blessed the congregation that I serve, in cooperation with a neighboring congregation, with the ability to support the orphanage in Tanuku through finance, prayer, and cards and letters.
In the personality that God gave me, I empathize with the needs of the children, the concerns of the pastors, and the struggles that Swen and Aruna face raising 20 children in a very confined space. Swen and I communicate several times a week via WhatsApp, exchanging pictures and updates on the children as well as Swen’s daily concerns.
I thank God for the opportunity and the ability to serve Him and my friends on the other side of the world—and for your interest in learning more about the similarities and differences among life issues here and abroad.
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (James 1:27)
