-
- Jacob Staley (left) and Craig Staley stand in 60 acres of soybeans on farmland owned by St. Mark Lutheran Church, Van Wert, Ohio. The congregation contributes its share of profits from crops harvested to entities that fight hunger. Photos: Kathy Staley
-
- Canaan (far left), Brooke and Jacob Staley are part of a Van Wert family that farms 100 acres owned by St. Mark. Photo: Kathy Staley
-
- Kathy and Craig Staley own CKS Farms, LLE in Van Wert, along with Jacob. Photo: Jacob Staley
Editor’s note: The ELCA has a long and meaningful history of ministry in rural areas. This story is the first in a new series highlighting innovative rural ministries by ELCA congregations and communities today.
Early in the morning, Jacob Staley grabs his coffee and is out the door, with no time for breakfast. In his black Ford F-150, he drives across the 1,500 acres he and his dad Craig Staley own and work. He checks the turkey barns first thing. Then he canvasses the fields and assesses the big grain bins. After that, it’s over to the machinery area, where a piece of equipment may need work. A day of planting and harvesting follows. Farm paperwork gets done before bed.
“You name the job, I do it,” said Staley, 31, whose grandfather, Kenneth Doner, and great-grandfather, Paul Doner, did the same thing, right here.
The Staley farm, CKS Farms LLC, is one of several hundred similar family farms located in Van Wert County, Ohio—a flat, once marshy country where Germans came and stayed in the 1800s.
Jacob and Craig Staley also tend to 100 nearby acres that is owned by St. Mark Lutheran, a church in downtown Van Wert founded in 1864. When St. Mark received this plot of land as a bequest in 1949, it was valued at $19,000. Since then, the harvest has multiplied, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars for the church and its ministries. Today, St. Mark gives roughly $15,000 annually to fight hunger—above and beyond its normal mission outreach.
“We’re doing things that maybe we would not have been able to do, or [to] the extent that it is being done,” said Will Haggis, pastor of St. Mark.
Clara Harvey made it possible.
A pastor serving St. Mark at the time visited Harvey daily when she was in a nursing home in the mid-1940s, even though she wasn’t a member. When she died in 1947, she left the farmland to the church. Her family objected, but the land went to the church two years later.
At first, proceeds from the sale of crops went to the church’s general use and outreach. But in 2001, the congregation voted to funnel the proceeds from its farmland into efforts to alleviate hunger, Jacob Staley said.
Money from the land has helped local food banks and students in need. It has also funded Haven of Hope, a men’s homeless shelter, and Off the Streets Van Wert County, which helps homeless families get housing.
Beyond Van Wert County, funds from St. Mark’s farmland go to ELCA World Hunger and its Good Gifts program, and Lutheran Disaster Response. Funds also go to the Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem.
Dan Rift, ELCA director for congregational generosity, noticed and appreciated a $11,500 gift from St. Mark for ELCA World Hunger and Lutheran Disaster Response. “This is a congregation that already has strong mission support, and the hunger [offering] is above that. That is something quite special and I think quite inspiring,” he said.
Duty to feed the hungry runs deep in farmers, he explained. Homesteaders in his own family came to their new land in faith, and they felt blessed. Responding by providing for others came naturally, particularly among Lutheran farmers.
“There’s this kind of sense … that we were stewards of the earth.”
“That’s what a farm’s supposed to do,” Craig Staley agreed.
St. Mark’s model is unusual in that it uses church-owned farmland to make this happen. But there have been similar models over the years. Rift recalled times when farmers tithed a part of their crops or profits or when volunteers came in and did the work.
Briefly after World War II, farmers tossed bags of grain onto trains that made their way across America and destined for a hungry Europe that was rebuilding. That early effort folded into what became the global hunger entity today known as Church World Service.
No matter the model, providing food for the hungry has always meant working together, what Rift calls “alignment.” The Spirit is at work when congregations, farmers and workers together bring their resources to the table to accomplish what cannot be done alone.
Fittingly, Jacob and wife Brooke Staley have a son, Canaan—named for the promised land. His name complements farmland that holds the promise of nourishment for the vulnerable for years to come.
“This is a significant ministry,” Haggis concluded. “It will continue.”
