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Feeding mouths, feeding souls

In answering the call to the priesthood, Rev. Mary Jane Oakland picked up the receiver and professed a firm commitment to serving the spiritual, physical and emotional needs of not only her parishioners but folks in many recesses of the world.

Sunday’s 9:30 a.m. celebration of Pentecost will mark Oakland’s retirement, with Bishop Alan Scarfe leading the service at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Marshalltown.

After serving as a deacon at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ames from 1995 to 2001, she accepted a position as deacon at St. Paul’s, aiding Pr. Gregg Davison who was priest in charge of the church between 2001 to 2006, while also serving as pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church. During her years in the diaconate, she decided to continue in the line of priestly service.

“Some of those questions about ministry started bubbling up again,” she said.

The deacon completed a certificate in geriatric pastoral care and continuing education through Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. She was ordained to the priesthood in June 2005. In 2006, she took early retirement from Iowa State University to become the rector at St. Paul’s also serving as a volunteer chaplain at the Marshalltown Surgical and Medical Center.

In the beginning, Oakland – a native of Madison, S.D. – didn’t see a future in ministry. She earned an undergrad degree in Clinical Laboratory Sciences, working as a medical technologist at a local hospital while husband, Dave, earned a Ph.D and taught math and science course. The couple kept busy perusing careers and higher education while raising their children Mark, Tom and Michelle.

During college, a chaplain encouraged Oakland to enroll in seminary, but she demurred. She had grown up in a generation when women who worked in the church did so as educators, not as priests and ministers.

In 1979, she drew closer to her calling as an Episcopal priest when she and husband Dave attended a renewal weekend retreat and decided to became Episcopalian, having been raised Methodist.

“We were hungry for the Eucharist,” Oakland explained.

The couple relocated to Iowa when her husband got a job teaching at Drake University. Oakland secured a faculty position at Iowa State University. She received a master’s degree in food science and nutrition and later a Ph.D in family consumer education and nutrition at ISU. Oakland did community nutrition research at the university, working with undergrads in dietetic and graduate students in community nutrition from 1979 to 2006.

In 1999, the priest had a life-changing experience when Dr. Tahira Hira, of the president’s office at ISU, asked for her assistance in establishing a dietetics program in Pakistan. Oakland traveled to the Middle East in 1999, 2001, 2005 and 2011 to oversee the graduate diploma in Dietetics at the College of Home Economics of Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan.

Through the Episcopal Church’s companion relationship with the Diocese of Swaziland, Oakland has traveled to the African nation four times, teaching nutrition workshops in “international community nutrition” working with the church’s 14 feeding centers, located mainly in rural areas. The country has a high rate of youth affected by the loss of a parent to HIV/AIDS and the priest said many children suffer from malnutrition and stunted growth.

Oakland said she and her husband will continue to make trips to Africa through One World, One Church, a program chaired by Dave, with a visit to Swaziland planned for early 2016. The couple reside in Ames with the priest spending part of her week in Marshalltown.

Oakland also serves on the board of Self-Help International, a non-profit organization out of Waverly that is devoted to the cause of alleviating world hunger and poverty by helping farmers in Ghana and Nicaragua grow quality protein maize, and secures micro-loans for women.

Oakland will miss the echoing of children’s voices from the preschool held in the church; she will miss sharing in the congregation’s times of celebration; she will miss being the shoulder to lean on in times of hardship calling it “the holy privilege of being able to share in the joys and sorrows of the people.”

She noted the church’s willingness to extend hospitality to the community by allowing the church to be used for childcare services for people taking courses at the Community College Learning Center across the street, as well as continuing to have preschool and pre-kindergarten programs held at the church.

A luncheon following Sunday’s service will be held at Binford House for Oakland and parishioners. Rev. Richard Graves was elected to replace Oakland as St. Paul’s rector, starting in July.

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