An Uncertain Future: Faith in Middle America's Small Towns

There is not much of a skyline in Axtell, Kan., unless you count the nine grain silos or the rows of wind turbines that stitch gentle hills to the clouds. Fields of corn and soybeans color the 63 miles that separate this community of just over 400 people from the closest city, Manhattan, on the Kansas River.

Land is fertile near Axtell. So is the community's faith. The steeple of St. Michael's Catholic Church rises above the pines and oak trees, and on any given Sunday its pews are filled with more than half the town's population. The Catholic faith is a marker of Axtell's identity as much as the roads that turn to dirt and gravel at the town limits.