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Pastor Praveen Muthusamy heard about southwest Minnesota’s blustery winters, not knowing the severity of cold and snow until moving to Hills in October.
Muthusamy accepted the open pastoral position at Hills United Reformed Church, moving his wife, Sharon, and daughter, Hannah, to Hills weeks before one of the coldest and snowiest winters hit the area.
“The snow is pretty,” said the native of Chennai, the capitol of Tamil Nadu in southeast India. “The coldest it gets in Chennai is 70 degrees F. That’s winter for us.”
Fortunately for Muthusamy, he lives in the parsonage next door to the church in Hills.
“I personally didn’t mind the snow except on days where I needed to use our car for going different places,” he said.
He’s also become used to Hills’ small population (around 700 residents), a stark contrast to his home country’s population of roughly 11.8 million.
“Definitely I see a lot less people here in Hills, but I enjoy the country living. It is peaceful and quiet,” Muthusamy said.
“I enjoy the slow pace of living in the town compared to the hustle and bustle of big cities life. Hills is a nice town with lots of friendly people.”
Second career
The ministry is a second career for Muthusamy, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering, electronics and communication.
“I was pursuing a PhD in optics and laser science in Vellore Institute of Technology Chennai campus,” he said. “During that time I felt the Lord was calling me to the ministry.”
He carries on the tradition of Tamil Nadu, India, in which they don’t use last names.
Generally, wives and the children take the first name of their father. Muthusamy uses his father’s first name as his last name, but his wife and daughter use his last name, Praveen.
In Hills he is known simply as Pastor Praveen.
He credits his mother for preparing him for the Christian ministry when he was a child.
India primarily practices Hinduism (80 percent) with just over 2 percent being Christian.
“It was God’s gift to me that I was born in a Christian family in a country that has idols of gold, silver and wood in every nook and corner of a street,” he said.
“My mom not only taught my brother and me to constantly pray to God but showed us how to do it in her life.”
English is Muthusamy’s second language after his native language of Tamil. He is fluent in both languages.
He can read, write and listen to Hindi, one of the common languages in India. He’s also studied French, Greek, Hebrew, German and Latin.
In August 2018, he entered the Mid-American Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana, for a Master of Divinity Degree.
Intro to Hills came through seminary
At seminary in 2019, he met his wife, Sharon, who grew up in Indiana and taught Spanish and world history for 16 years at Illiana Christian High School.
She became a full-time mom when Hannah was born 16 months ago.
As a requirement for his divinity degree, Muthusamy needed to complete two summer internships. Both times he traveled to Hills and the Hills United Reformed Church. The first was in 2021 and the second last summer.
“Both those summer internships went really well. We loved the congregation and the congregation loved us, which reflected in the call after I sustained my candidacy exam in September 2022,” Muthusamy said.
“So, in God’s providence it was clear that God wanted us to serve his people at Hills.”
At Hills United, Muthusamy said his primary duty is to preach the good news of Jesus Christ to the congregation of 20 families.
“Lost sinners are brought into true faith in Jesus and those who have true faith continue to mature and become more and more like Jesus,” he said.
“This is what I want for my congregation so that by the grace of God the Father and through the power of God the Holy Spirit, we can be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.”