O.J. Simpson

Many of the younger readers of this blog will only remember OJ Simpson for his trial for the murders of his ex-wife and her friend, and the amazing low-speed chase on the freeway (read: boring!). I am old enough to remember him in Hertz commercials running through an airport to catch a rental car.

I felt like that today...

A huge line of storms swept through Dallas a couple of hours before the first leg of my return flight to Germany. That caused the cancellation or delaying of many flights, including mine. We arrived in Chicago an hour late, giving me only 10 minutes to get to my overseas connecting flight... the last one of the evening.

So there I was, a Forty-Something guy carrying two overweight carry-ons - not that I would advocate overloading your luggage - running the length of two terminals. The scariest part came as I was still a number of gates away from where I needed to be. I heard, "Frankfurt Passenger Perrin, this is your last call. Report to your departure gate immediately."

I barely made it... out of breath and sore from the weight, distance and slalom course needed to avoid running over other travelers. I got on the plane and into my seat and the sixteen year old sitting next to me says, "You know, you're supposed to be at the airport at least two hours before your planned departure."

How to handle setbacks

Okay... so this house that we were promised (in a handshake agreement until the contract could be mailed to us) was rented to someone else. It's really frustrating, but sometimes life just stinks.

One of the things I've learned is that although I can't control the way people treat us, I can control my response to them. As is the case with most of us, our first reaction was a desire to go help this man rearrange his priorities (if you know what I mean)... but we have instead chosen to see it as God protecting us from having a landlord with a serious lack of character. And for that, we're thankful!

So the house search goes on...

On my way!

Tomorrow morning I take the 15 hour long trip from Bonn to Dallas. I'm excited to get to see many of you. You can check out my travel schedule at:


http://www. perrinministries. org/pm-xp/html/modules/agendax/index. php?op=cal

or

http://www. myspace. com/jeperrin

See ya!!!
Jon

Finally!!!

Exciting news... we found a house! We found a house that is a lot bigger than our current apt, and cheaper as well. It's only about 10km (a little over 6 miles) from the kids' school. The local train takes only 15 minutes to get to Basel (with its international airport and further train connections) and runs every 30 minutes.

We're really excited about it! It has a bedroom or each of the kids and we have a big bedroom. And although our bedroom is unfinished, we get to finish it out however we want to (within reason) at the owner's expense. It's set in the quaint German village of Wintersweiler (Efringen-Kirchen).

Check out our Youth Ministry Blogs

Be sure to check out our new blogs... their purpose is to assist those that work with youth. (duhh!!!) We have received a number of questions over the years. In these blogs we'll share the answers we gave.

Having worked with youth for over 20 years, and having served in a teaching/coaching and mentoring capacity for youth workers for the past ten years, we have learned that for every person that asks a question, there are twenty more that would like to have the same question answered.

These blogs are an attempt to share what we've learned through successes, observations and many mistakes. We hope they will be a blessing to you!

Youth Ministry Q & A (English)

Jugenddienst Q & A (Deutsch)

Frustration!

Jon's laptop hard drive gave up the ghost after a tough fight.  He did, however, get to install a large new one in its place.  He barely had time to back everything up before it crashed, but got all the critical files taken care of.  God is good!

House hunting...

Well, we can now scratch four houses off our list. We couldn't see the house we really wanted to see because the owners are out of town. The "realtors" usually won't show a house unless the owner is present. And don't even get me started on the two - three month's rent the realtors charge for a rental property! Oh well... such is life. God is still in charge!