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Lutheran Deacon Dives Into Depths of Poverty
By Tom Fruehling, Feature Editor

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Kane Photo

Growing up in Marion on Blairs Ferry Road, Pat Kane spent summers swimming in nearby Indian Creek and the Legion pool in Thomas Park. He had an early fascination with the "Sea Hunt" television show with Lloyd Bridges and later learned everything he could on underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau. A year after he graduated from Marion High School in 1968, with 12 months in the Navy Reserves already behind him, he set out for a globe-trotting life in the active duty Navy as a deep sea diver. Over the next 20 years, until a series of near-fatal diving exercises ended his career, Pat swam toward the bottom in most of the world's oceans. It was during this time, he said, that he developed a deeper and deeper sense of spirituality. "Down in the depths," he said, "I became more aware of God's creation.  I saw things that could not have been made of human hands."

Now, at the age of 57, he's diving headlong into a new adventure. Following two years of Lutheran seminary training at Gettysburg, Pa., and a six-month internship at First Lutheran in Cedar Rapids, he was consecrated in January as a deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He is one of just four with that role within the ELCA's Southeastern Iowa synod. As a servant minister, his call from Iowa City-based Bishop Philip Hougen was to establish an outreach mission to identify and help people in poverty. Somewhat surprisingly to even himself, Pat discovered an area with among the most unmet needs in the heart of where he'd spent his own early years on the west side of Cedar Rapids near downtown.
"I had known that area my whole life," he said, "but I just hadn't seen it."
He was well aware that the near east side of town was filled with pockets of poverty.  But he also knew that there already existed a number of agencies trying to support those neighborhoods. Pouring through the Cedar Rapids Community School District's statistics for students who qualify for free or reduced-fee meal programs, Pat found that 92 percent of the children at Polk Elementary fell under the guidelines. But he also learned that nearly as many (at 84 percent) from Taylor Elementary were in the same category.
"And there seemed to be a void as far as services for those living in that part of town.  It was like the Great Wall of China separating the east and west sides." With full backing from Bishop Hougen, Pat launched an effort to plant the seeds for an ecumenical mission to address the needs of the residents throughout the sprawling neighborhood.
Many area churches of all faiths and denominations signed on to the project, and hundreds of volunteers willing to help out were enlisted. In the unused lower level space offered by leaders of Cedar Christian Church, 536 Third Ave. SW, CrossRoads Mission opened early this year.
"We're here to serve our guests, in whatever we can," Pat pointed out.

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Tom Fruehling/Marion Times Photo

A late-in-life conversion to the Lutheran ministry has led Marion native son Pat Kane into a mission to tackle local problems of poverty.  For information about CrossRoads Mission, phone 319.365.0707 or visit www.crossroads-mission.com.

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There's a food pantry and free clothing, provisions for emergency meals and job assistance, Bible studies and counseling, pastoral visits and health care referrals.
Substance abuse and other support programs have been started. And, in the past month, Pat has begun a Sunday worship service.
"We don't want to duplicate what's already available in the community," he said.  "But we want to make sure we get people the help they need." And often it is in a crisis situation.
He brought up the age-old question of whether it is best to give a poor man a fish or teach him how to fish as a lifelong skill.
"Sometimes you have to feed that person first before you can do anything more," noted Pat, who last month was elected president of Churches United in Linn county. And in a few short months, he said a sea full of symbolic fish have been served to the hungry.
The number of family members who have used the food pantry, for example, has steadily grown from 49 in February to 335 last month.
"We're just beginning to find out how deep the problems are," Pat said.  "And they're much deeper than I originally envisioned." After he miraculously survived the last of his death-defying diving accidents that forced his medical retirement from the Navy in 1989, Pat said he underwent an awakening of sorts.
"I believed every day was a gift from God.  More and more, I felt a sense of God's presence and that he had a purpose for me that I hadn't fulfilled.  But I didn't know what I was supposed to be." He became a college administrator, a successful businessman in the Chicago area, a corporate strategic planning consultant planning and a sales representative. When health problems struck his parents Rosella and Pat (the elder), who retired after 28 years as Linn County Recorder, he and wife Vel moved to Cedar Rapids in 1997 to be close. Pat then built up a lucrative real estate career.  Still, he was feeling like, well, a fish out of water. Though it took six solid years of intense self-discovery, Pat said he finally decided to heed the call to ministry.
"My wife just laughed," he recalled. "She said, "Is that all? I thought you were having a mid-life crisis." She's been my biggest supporter.
"I turned my heart over to Christ and let the Holy Spirit move me.  I put God in control, and now I know I'm where I should be, doing what I should be doing."

This article reprinted from the Marion Times with the kind permission of editor, Cathy Brousseau. 
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