we don’t play that game

I recently over-heard a conversation between my younger brother and our sister-in-law. A few weekends ago, my younger brother who goes to college out east stayed with me for a day. My newly married brother, Tim, and his wife came to visit too, since they live close by. Now, sometimes the interactions between my sister-in-law and my family can be quite interesting because she wasn’t raised Mennonite like the rest of us were.

Here goes the story.
Recently my sister-in-law has been contemplating career path changes due to being laid-off, since November. We were talking jobs and plans, when my sister-in-law mentioned thinking about returning to school to finish up her degree. “So, Tim’s paying the bills!” my younger brother exclaimed. “We both are paying the bills,” my sister-in-law countered. My brother chuckles and says, “And you don’t even have a job.” Then they both laughed sheepishly.

I also recently ran into an article on Mennonites and their approach to relief work in an old copy of Christianity today. It is entitled, "Mennonites Won’t Play the Game." It compares the way Mennonites do relief work and the way other evangelicals do it. The author seemed to suggest that Mennonites have more experience in relief work and sites one leader who challenged the helpfulness of making a distinction between relief work and development work, wording other evangelicals have gotten hung up on. i.e. “We just do what we thunk would help du mostest.” Concerning social conscience, “the leaders (Mennonite) seem less taken with endless talk,”…and have come upon their charity work through helping people, relatives and friends, who live in other countries, separated by emigration situations.

article by J. Alan Youngren