The Mennonite Doctrine on Inter-Marriages

Today I got an email from a guy from school asking if Mennonites only date/marry Mennonites. Finding this a strange email question and one that he must have known the answer to, I responded in an informative way (exact copy of my reply):

Funny you should ask, it's a long story if you want to understand the Mennonite position on outside relationships, but basically the answer is:

No, there are some Mennonites who deviate from staying within their cultural/religious affiliation. However, Mennonites are expected to marry and procreate with other Mennonites. Dating and friendships with non-Mennonites has become increasingly more acceptable, but is frowned upon and usually results in disassociation with the church and sometimes the family. Interestingly, Mennonites are expected to be married before the age of 25 or else are expected to have sworn chastity.

There are recently accepted ways which allow a non-Mennonite, both in culture and religious heritage, to convert and therefore make a connection with a Mennonite more appropriate. Why do you ask?

(the age of 25 thing was Mel's input) Oh, and by the way I think the only way to convert to Mennonite's cultural heritage is to consume mass amounts of vareniki, borscht and schmofat, so if the question comes up that will be the response.

I had a good time at dinner today. You know why? Because my parents are pretty much hilarious.
This woman called from Municipal Gas. Everytime someone calls from some business that involves selling something, giving something etc. my mom rolls her eyes and gets ready to be discouraging, rude and uninterested. My dad is always polite. This phone call was for him. My dad answers the phone, and looks at me wiggling his eyebrows, to which my mom whispers to me "it's a woman"
My dad I can tell is in a bit of a fun mood, but he's being very polite answering "yessss" and such appropriate answer to questions. I must compare this to my mom's way of dealing with people on the phone, right away she hurridly interrupts saying something like "AHHHH you know what No, Nope, NO BYE" So my dad continues on with this politeness. We hear him say "well I'm home tonight but someone's coming over" My mom is frantically whispering and mouthing to him that we're not signing anything for them and giving all sorts of information. My dad continues listening to the woman on the phone. "Renew the contract?" He says in a questioning voice. I don't know if he knew the reaction that would come from mom at that point, but he certainly wasn't surprised when it came, mom leans forward, she's about one foot away from the phone "I ALREADY TOLD THEM IT WAS FINISHED THREE MONTHS AGO!!!" She's incredibly angry (I didn't find out until later it wasn't completely innappropriate anger because she's had to pay for an extra 3 months because they needed the finished thing in writing) Anyways, my dad, face still in the same serene expression says calmly and quietly "Oh apparantly it's finished" as if the person on the other line hadn't heard what my mom yelled into the phone and felt her seething anger. I absolutely could not help bursting out laughing, and I couldn't get scolded by my mom either because she'd just yelled into the phone. By the time my dad hangs up the phone I've realized that he was playing the whole thing (something my mom hadn't caught on to either) If he'd really cared about being polite he would have frowned at mom when she yelled and me when I laughed. Yeah, he hung up the phone and started laughing hysterically with me. Mom got it then to and joined in but they still talked about it for 10 minutes afterwards, because mom believes he shouldn't have led the woman to believe he was considering resigning the contract. My dad said his way was more fun.

"Moley Moley Moley"
Phew, it sure is a good thing something INTERESTING happened today, otherwise I wouldn't be able to respond to the flood of comments about me posting a new blog, and then having my blog COMPLETELY OVERTAKEN by people calling me and my sisters names such as "little dolls" "sedate" "Fat King Eglon" and the "crazy"
Ok, so this is actually quite a sad incident for me to report on. I had a dermitologist appointment today. The first sad thing was that I was walking into a plastic surgeon's office, and felt very self-conscious about the lady examining my face, and then whispering to her husband while looking at me (was she speculating that I was getting a new nose, I don't know?). Ok, yes I'm hyper self-conscious. Anyways, my appointment was at 1:00. So I was starting to get annoyed by the time 1:45 came along and I hadn't been called (but only slightly because although I had a ton of homework and other such stuff to be accomplishing and still do right now as I'm writing this, I was reading Pride and Prejudice and really wasn't too put out about it)
Anyways, finally I went in and she examined my mole on the back of my neck. She said it didn't look serious although she expressed disapproval of my natural white-tank top (or the tan lines that have created it, unfortunately turning it pink on the canoe trip has not helped) She decided to remove it because it is this cute little multicoloured mole, and I guess that is kinda suspicious. So before I know it I'm having a needle jabbed into my neck and my mole is GONE!
I actually had to stand beside my bike for a few minutes after I brought the gross little cold liquid container that I presume contained my mole to the front counter and paid 20$ for the "tray procedure."
Anyways, I had to stand there and grieve the loss of the mole a little. The most prominent one was each summer when the mole was revealed by a tank top having my mom pick at it and wonder "what's on your back" and every summer explain to her that it's a mole I've had all my life, and there is no amount of picking that will remove it. Each summer since then it has gotten increasingly funny as Roslyn has joined the examination of the mole, and there have been numerous comments of it being half-coloured and needing to have it checked out. I personally have never seen this mole up close since it is on the back of my neck, but have loved it for it's ability to cause such a ruckus.
I also mourn the fact that it was special because it was half-coloured and kinda unique I guess. My only consolation is that it will hopefully leave a cool scar. But I have little hope for that cuz it didn't really bleed much.
Oh yes, I forgot to say that part of the reason I had to stand by my bike to reflect was that I was kinda lightheaded from whatever was in that needle she gave me, and was afraid of falling over.

Glistening Boys

So since everyone at Portage seems to have a blog here, I've decided to join. After reading Zeb's and laughing so much, I couldn't resist. I feel as though the first blog should be about the canoodle trip 2006 because it was THE BEST TRIP EVER

Zeb you seem to misunderstand. Other canoes did not 'slide their canoes down the rocks' we merely took it off our shoulders and heads (to make up for the height difference in me and Janelle) and carried it the hard way in order to prevent tumbling down incredibly steep rock steps. And we didn't rock that portage, we just flew through it. Anyways, that is not the point of this blog, the point is that Melanie, Karen and Roslyn did not Rock or fly through this portage and had immense difficulty... which was keenly spotted out by two very cut (ripped, muscular, strapping, strong, built) and very glistening young men who flew past the three of them (one of them portaging a canoe by himself) One of them then told Janelle and me that 'your buddies are having a bit of trouble' and as he stood there, muscles glistening in the sun, said 'yeah, killer huh' as if he hadn't just flew through it with a canoe on his shoulders.
Janelle then asked him whether he thought the water was safe to drink without filtering. 'Well, I don't know the chemical composition of your stomach, I can drink this water, but I grew up on the farm. bulge bulge (sound of muscles bulging) I don't know about how it is if you're from the city' Needless to say he succeeded in affirming his ruggedness. He also offered to show us a few good campsites, but we informed him that others in the group had done the route before.
I don't really understand how/why these guys were a point of so much laughter and joking on the trip, but I think part of the reason was that they ended up camping near our five star campsite and we pretty much figured we beat them to it in the morning when Melanie was rudely awakened by Roslyn's yelling, ran whimpering down the path saying "sweet merciful crap.. our Campsite!" all the time thinking that someone was going to take it, when really, the only threat was these guys camped down the beach, probably still sleeping.
Another reason might be that we didn't see them with shirts on all weekend and they were ALWAYS GLISTENING!
Yet another reason could be them stopping by and making friendly conversation and saying "maybe we'll stop by later" which gave them the name 'Mr. we'll stop by later'
Luckily we managed to 'be friendly but not inviting'/scare them away from any further communication with us by loudly talking about them and laughing (forgetting how clearly sound is heard across water) and responding to their 'proposition' to borrow a grate for their shiskabobs by quickly shoving them off with the grate saying 'enjoy your shiskabobs!' without waiting for the rest of the proposition...... Janelle then took a picture of their glistening backs as they canoed away.