Scare the Hell Out of ‘em!
// November 9th, 2009 // Life, Reflection
That was the goal for the Hell House. Not necessarily to scare people, but certainly to scare the Hell out of them, and to scare them out of Hell.
For the Halloween weekend, we completely transmogrified (thank you, Calvin & Hobbes) our youth center into the set for a 5 act drama, wherein we depicted the errant life of a Mexican teenage boy who, instead of going to church, goes to a party, gets crunk, crashes his car, dies, goes to judgment, and is sent to Hell. The storyline also included a funeral, but that obviously didn’t have our main character doing anything. The set took hours upon hours, over a week to set up and we ended up opening late our first night so we could finish everything last minute.
My role was originally going to change each night, but due to unforeseen scheduling complications and the fact that Brittany simply doesn’t make a passable silhouette for God, I was a party participant and God every single night. Because there were two very short scenes between the long party scene and long judgment scene, I had to run out of the party and around the entire youth center to get to my position before the group came in. A couple times, I didn’t make it in time, which ended up being pretty comical.
We had a great many hiccups throughout the weekend, which to me signifies that the enemy didn’t like what we were doing. Instead of getting down and broken, though, our entire team managed to keep spirits up, devise quick solutions, and laugh about everything.
hiccups:
The curtain hiding God (and also showing His silhouette) fell. Repeatedly. Every day except the last.
The lights going out on the Judgment scene.
Music/ipods missing, starting at the wrong times, playing the wrong tracks. Every night.
Not being in place on time.
Bottles breaking in the party scene.
Lightbulbs breaking all the time.
The power went out one night.
Rowdy kids.
Hannah got egged at the entrance door. Also, she’s slightly crippled right now and had to be the bouncer.
Physical, mental, and spiritual exhaustion.
Solutions:
We bought tape. We bought other tape. We finally drilled to nails into the ceiling and strung up the curtain. One night, there was no taping it, so we wrapped me in it for every group after I ran in from the party scene. This was by far the most ridiculous hiccup.
We figured out that it was just going to keep happening, since the only place we could plug in the lights was poorly placed. I just plugged it back in after each scene, but the first one was a scramble.
We laughed. What else could you do?
Samesies here.
Played it off like it was a real party and gave the person a hard time, then swept it up between groups.
We gathered up all the broken lightbulb glass and put it at the car crash. Nice touch.
There was no power on the whole block, so we prayed for God to reveal His power and that we needed no light aside from His, that if we had to change our story to whatever story He wrote for us, we would be willing and happy to do so. We then started preparing to do the night without power, but when Matt and Mike went home to get all the backup supplies, the power company showed up and made it happen.
Hannah is straight up a champion. I have no idea how she did it, but she kept kids from stampeding, killing each other, or killing her, all the while yelling and singing and entertaining them in Spanish for four nights. She was amazing.
Prayer.
We had a ton of friends throughout the city helping us out on various nights. Jensen played Satan one night, Isai supplied us with party music he made, Adrian stuck it out with us all four nights in the party room and in post-Hell prayer, Uriel helped with partying and prayer, Alina was a guide for a couple nights and the sister of the main character two other nights, Brittany helped us party, pastors showed up to help with prayer, even one of our Spanish teachers showed up one night. Oh yeah, and God kinda helped us out I guess.
Some of the most entertaining moments were due to groups interacting with us at the party scene and, from what I heard, in Hell with our demons and Satan. However, the best moments for me were during setup and prayer each night. We came together as a group, many of us not initially believing this would be successful, and threw our full support and our whole hearts into the project. We knew that if even one person over the four nights was reached and transformed and came to know God intimately through a new relationship with Jesus Christ, then our efforts were well worth it.
Setup and makeup for the demons cracked me up every single night. Initially, Loree was our only makeup artist. As the second night drew near to the opening, we discovered that there was yet much to be done. What happened at that point? Oh yes, you guessed correctly. I joined the makeup crew. Here’s a little-known (I usually like to keep it that way, but this is worth spilling here) secret about my past: my sister and I went through modeling classes, including makeup application, lighting, commercial spots, and runway stuff when we were kids. I managed to retain all of that information and, coupling it with what I learned in theater in high school (where I was the only straight guy who could do both my own and other guys’ makeup), I set to work making Mike terrifyingly beautiful. He looked like Heath Ledger’s Joker, no joke. This guy looked terrifying every night. On the second night, I put a hole in the middle of his throat –complete with dripping blood– on top of the cheek scars and generally horrific demon look. On our final night, Loree was getting frustrated and was exhausted, so I ended up finishing everyone’s makeup after she got the base stuff on them all. I have been trying not to boast lately, but they looked fantastic. Rachel, Jen, and Justin all looked awesome (HUGE assist from Stacia, Rachel, and Katlyn on making Justin into an incredibly stunning Satan), but Mike was my pride and joy. I slit his neck with makeup. No joke, it looked like someone had slit his neck and let it scab over, but that it had opened up and dripped in a few spots. I think this is the best art I’ve ever done, oddly.
I just spent over 1100 words not telling you the most important parts of the Hell House (La Casa del Terror) experience, so here’s the good stuff. I expected maybe 20 kids a night. We had 106, 102, 106, and 126 people on four nights. I didn’t know if anyone would give their lives to Christ. Our count showed 294 people praying for their salvation over the weekend. We handed out 400 Spanish Bibles to a neighborhood in desperate need of hope. When we heard the final tallies, I broke down. I was blowing snot bubbles while tears streamed down my face, and all the while, I laughed. The Lord filled me with such joy that He would be so gracious as to use us in such a way. I, a sinner for sure, was no more deserving of His grace and mercy than any of the people I met that weekend, yet He used me to reach them and establish His relationship with them, expanding His Kingdom.
After those four nights, after the previous two weeks, we were dead tired. And yet, as much as we all wanted to go home and sleep for a week, we knew the hard work had just begun. The Great Commission of Matthew 28:18b-20a says “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” It doesn’t say “get people to say a simple prayer and then return to living exactly as they have.” Jesus tells us to make disciples, to baptize, to teach. That means that our work is just beginning, and that we have an incredible task ahead of us. It’s time to get to work.