page_38 < previous page page_38 next page > Page 38 so-called 'natives'people from this areashould go down to Jersey and stay there for a little while and find out what it's like. "Last week my husband and I went from South Jersey to Baltimore. And I said, 'Do you realize that it took us just five minutes to get to I-295? We didn't have to go through one stoplight the whole way: from Camden, New Jersey, to Baltimore.' To me that's frightening! I can't believe that we have built a highway system like that. And they're going to do the same thing here! They want to do it here! They want to put a new Route 23 through here. Well, I drive Route 23 everyday. I drive an average of seventeen miles an hour. It takes me forty-five to fifty minutes to get to Millersville. But I do truly understand what the impact of a new 23 would be on this county! "I don't mean to be a pessimist, but I do truly feel that the people who have the power in Lancaster County do not understand what it is they're doing. It's a very narrow vision. They think the problems of the city won't come here with all the development or that they can shut their eyes and God will take care of it. Because they're not worldly, and this group stays inside its little shell. They don't understand what's going on here. They think they can just keep developing and building and making their money, and everything is going to stay nice and pristine, and they won't listen to people from 'the outside' because they're 'outsiders.' "My husband does not like to live here; since he wasn't born here, he's always treated like an outsider. It's very hard to move into Lancaster County because people who have lived here their entire lives don't listen to 'outsiders.' "I had to laugh the other day when I was waiting for the stoplight at Kinzer Avenue and Route 23 to turn green. The borough of New Holland is having a big hundred-year celebration, and they have bright blue banners hung along Main Street [which is also Route 23] that say 'Garden Spot of America.' "And I laughed because I thought, 'That is so hypocritical. You may say that now, and you may want to put that front on for people on the outside, but it's not that anymore.' To me it's not! I've lived here all my life. It's not 'the Garden Spot of America' anymore. When you take this type of farmland, the kind out herethe farmland out here is some of the richest in the worldand you start to develop on land like this, well, I thought when I saw those banners, 'How dare you? How dare you put up those banners!'" Challenging Lancaster Conference Mennonites to reexamine their understanding of stewardship, sociologist John Hostetler asked them to consider becoming prophets, not entrepreneurs. 18 "In the same manner that the Hebrew prophets spoke against unfaithful rulers, so the prophets of  < previous page page_38 next page >