Meet Your Neighbor Pastor Mark Nowakowski from Oquawka.
Pastor Nowakowski has been the directing pastor at the United Methodist Church in Oquawka for the past 9 months.
His job is to equip the saints for ministry, and make disciples for Jesus Christ, the chief disciple maker.
He was born and raised in Illinois in the Peru area.
He graduated from La Salle-Peru High School in 1983, Illinois Valley Community College and from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, where he majored in microbiology and pre-hospital medicine.
He has risen from the ranks of being a paramedic, fire fighter, lab tech, and chemical engineer to now a pastor.
He has been a pastor in Des Moines, Iowa, the Quad Cities area, Colona, Iowa City, Aurora and Geneseo.
He has been married to his wife, Julie, for 13 years. They have two sons, Matthew (12) and Kevin (9). Both attend West Central School District #235.
His parents are Don and Janice Nowakowski who reside in Dalzell, and one brother, Chris who lives in Ottawa.
He has been mentored, in his music, by Christian contemporary music artists, Russ Taft and Michael W. Smith, whom are also good friends.
When asked what musical instruments he played he said, "Ask me what I don't play."
Pastor Nowakowski has many, varied interests.
He foremost enjoys his family but is a computer buff, loves anything electronic, especially Lionel model trains, teaches music lessons, mentors, counsels, and records his own music. He also confessed he is a video game addict.
For fun, he and his family enjoy going to Dubuque, Iowa to the Grand Harbor Hotel.