Rob and I owe a large portion of the credit for inspiring the food tour to Matt and Elizabeth Troyer-Miller. Friends whom Rob met during his time at Goshen College, Matt and Elizabeth joined three others last summer in traveling around the region for the Central Plains Mennonite Conference. The mission of their tour, through conversation and worship, was to reinvigorate congregations in their practice of the church's Christ-centered peace ethic.
Given their inspiration for the tour and their blossoming interest in food production, it seemed appropriate to make our way out to visit Matt and Elizabeth in Shickley, Nebraska. They moved to Shickley, Matt's hometown which is located about an hour and a half from Lincoln, after their tour last year. After years away, Shickley still feels like home to Matt. While Elizabeth has had a harder time adjusting, she's made good connections with people, animals and land. In addition to their Pomeranian named Patmos, the small Troyer-Miller homestead two blocks from downtown is home to about 30 chickens, some purchased and some inherited from a local school project. A local family helped slaughter one batch of birds and the meat the Troyer-Millers eat is mostly very-local chicken raised in their backyard.
In spite of never having gardened before, Matt and Elizabeth have also started several beds with onions, potatoes, herbs, tomatoes, leeks, peas, peppers and many other kinds of produce. A large portion of their garden is on the property of their 93-year-old next-door neighbor, Ethel, whose yard also contains perennial patches of asparagus, rhubarb and berries. Their friend Kate, in town between college and a Mennonite Voluntary Service assignment, helps out with the garden as well. In addition to eating and freezing what they grow, Elizabeth and Kate sell produce and home-baked goods at the farmer's market in York on Thursday evenings.
Another source of food for their household has been the small grocery store where Elizabeth works. When produce starts to look less than saleable or arrives damaged, she rescues it before it ends up in the dumpster, from a flat of strawberries to a bunch of red peppers that were over-ordered.
Members of Salem Mennonite Church, located outside of Shickley in the midst of cornfields, the Troyer-Millers understand their food habits as part of their quiet witness to a simple, stewardly way of life that maintains a connection to the land and their community. Matt articulates their philosophy this way:
One thing that we're aware of is that we're in the heart of agribusiness and there are a lot of people--a lot of really good friends--who make their livelihood and whose identity is wrapped up in farming. And farming in this area is very commercial, it's big. You either do one thing and you get big or you aren't a farmer anymore. While [Elizabeth and I] don't necessarily...talk a whole lot about why we're doing what we're doing or the choice not to use pesticides or some of those things, ...I think it's obvious that we're doing things differently. I think it's a way of being prophetic, but not being a jerk about it. Because if you're just yelling at people and just telling them what you're doing, but you don't really love them, then you're just kind of being an asshole. But if you don't necessarily rub it in people's faces and you're doing it in a way that opens doors, then it's a different way.
Matt and Elizabeth's witness is bearing fruit literally and figuratively. About 30 people attended the food and storytelling workshop we did at Salem Mennonite Church--a big deal in a town of 360. A mother of three teen-agers marveled several times at their influence, especially on the youth in the church. A couple of teen-agers even came to the workshop without their parents, just because they were interested in the topic. Seems like good seeds are being planted all around in Shickley, Nebraska.
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