Tyler Hunt

H2O was a little different than usual. Instead of the regular sermon and worship, there was a wedding and worship. It was a very odd service, and not just because it was in a bar. There’s was much more sitting than usual for a wedding, as the groomsmen and bridesmaids sat through most of it. Even the bride and groom were seated separately on either side of the aisle for part of the ceremony. Then there was over an hour of photography following, and a little bit of dancing. The reception was conveniently located, however. It was a nice wedding overall, but not the way I would want to have mine.

My first hosteling experience was in Boston on my seventh-grade class trip with The Geneva School. The trip was one of the most memorable of my life, and a large part of those memories were of the good times spent at the hostel. So, when Kim first mentioned that we were going to be spending Memorial Day weekend at a hostel in the Everglades, my ears perked up pretty quick. There aren’t too many people willing to put up in low-cost dorm-style housing, and share the facilities with a wide range of other travelers. They tend to be havens for hippies, and draw all sorts of interesting characters.

The Everglades International Hostel has lived up to every expectation, and exceeded some. From the sign at the front desk that magically appeared as the office door was shut, to the big screen TV in the side room of the Kitchen House, this hostel has proved to be about as quirky as should be expected. The nicest feature of the place is the large courtyard in the back, which is an amusement park in itself, with its outdoor bed, seahorse water garden, and cushion-filled screen rotunda with rooftop patio. The kitchen is well stocked, and the communal fridge offers plenty for those with adventurous appetites. The Everglades Hostel is an authentic remnant of South Florida architecture and culture, open to those with even the smallest of budgets, or a willingness to pitch a tent in the back.

A few new things going on with me right now. I received a call today from FCE (who Daniel works for). I put in my resumé last week, and I now have an interview this Friday. I’m still really torn about taking this job. The experience would be good, but it also means a much longer drive and a pay cut.

Class work is starting to pick up a little. There are now two programming projects and a third homework assignment with fast-approaching due dates. I’ve been putting off doing any sort of work or study for either of my classes, but I spent some time during class today to work on the Operating Systems project. I actually came really close to getting it finished and working in the limited amount of time I spent on it.

I’m really starting to look forward to the trip this weekend. With only two days to go, it’s time to start thinking about things to bring, and making other final preparations. Assuming I don’t become violently ill beforehand, there should be plenty of good times to come.

Since this is finals week, and lots of the chickens and mans were busy studying, tonight’s Flood was turned into a giant wiener roast. Aaron grilled up more wieners than the ketchup bottle could handle, although that was largely Robin’s fault for drowning his dogs in the condiment. Everything else was quickly scarfed down though, and Tim’s roomies came over to assist with the eating.

After Kim’s amazing strawberry shortcake, everyone conglomerated in the family room and Aaron resume his typical teaching stance in the hallway. Then someone had the brilliant idea of putting the mass collection of cell phones in the room to good use by simultaneously calling a few select individuals who were absent from the gathering. It was quite the sight to behold: a roomful of babbling voicemail drones. The Smith’s sure know how to throw a party.

It’s always interesting to see how churches change their services for Easter. H2O’s service today was no exception. In place of the usual murmur before the service, there was silence, only the soft quell of cathedral music and a slowly transitioning slideshow with simple words to focus the mind on the significance of the day. A short message from John Hever was followed by worship and communion, including some special songs for the occasion. The oddest thing about the service, though, was the length. At just under an hour, it seemed odd to have a shortened liturgy when a lot of churches would have had a longer one.

The remaining part of the day continued to be somewhat odd, at least in comparison to the typical Easter activities. With the parents out of town for the funeral of my great grandmother, there was brunch or holiday dinner. No relatives visiting. None of the typical festivities normally surrounding this day. The house was quiet, but we still found ways to make the day memorable.

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It has been almost four months, but H2O @ :08 is finally starting up again. The weirdest thing about being there was how little it had changed. Things were pretty much exactly the same as they were back in December. The band did an excellent job as always, and the tech crew had a few tricks up their sleeves with some new video elements and heftier fog machines. The fog machines caused a little incident, however. It got a little out of hand and ended up getting into the air conditioning ducts where it managed to set off the smoke detectors. A crew of axe-wielding firemen entered the building during worship to investigate the problem. Somewhere along the way a gas leak was discovered, as well, and the building was soon filled with the smell. They eventually evacuated the club, displacing a large number of people into the parking lot. More fire trucks came, and there was much hoopla and commotion, as would be expected. It turned out that the gas leak was actually in another building across the street, but by then it was a little late to resume the merrymaking. TJ was in his element tonight, and captured a good deal of footage that I’m sure we’ll all be able to look back on someday with fond memories of this eventful evening.

I’m hesistant to write about the movie so soon after seeing it. It’s such an intense experience that I think it will take a while to digest. I don’t think I’m even capable of expressing in words how I felt afterwards. You know the message comes across the right way, though, when everyone who comes out of the theater has tears in their eyes. The Passion has the potential to impact a lot of people, and it will be exciting to see how God uses it.

I was talking to a some people today who had some negative things to say about the film before seeing it. One mentioned that Jesus must have had a really bad lawyer, because he lost in the worst way possible. Putting aside the fact that there was no right to a fair trial at that time, this is a really interesting perspective to contemplate, but this individual has completely missed the significance of Christ’s death. I also read a comment today from someone who had seen the film and thought that it was a shame that they hadn’t shown more of the love of Christ earlier in his life, and less of his death. The death of Jesus on the cross was the ultimate expression of love, and it seems that this is the one point that most people fail to grasp. In some ways it is unfortunate that this aspect wasn’t emphasized more in the film, but there’s still so much power behind it that it should really get people thinking. I know it will be on my mind for long time to come.

Aaron put up a rough web site for the Flood lifegroup today, which was a really good idea. After collecting names and numbers from everyone on several occasions, it’s about time that there’s some way of accessing this information. He also put out a challenge for someone to make a “real live webpage.” Well, I started on this today. The framework development I’ve been sporadically posting about for the last few months has been kind of stalled, and I think this will be a good way to get it going again. I’ve found that it’s really hard to build something abstract like this framework without having a purpose in mind, so hopefully this will provide enough initiative to get an initial version done.

As far as school days go, today was one of the best of the semester so far. With H2O’s campus ministry starting up, Robin and Lauren spent the day at a booth outside the student union, inviting all in sight to come check us out. Daniel and I hung out with them for a few minutes between classes, and just happened to be in the right spot to be in a photograph for OrlandoCityBeat. We also hit up mealplan, our new usual spot for lunching, and were joined by constant stream of new people that turned our table into an H2O party.

More on OrlandoCityBeat: Having never heard of this publication, and interested in their indie-style journalistic approach, I checked out their site. There’s a lot of good stuff here if you’re looking for new things to try in and around Orlando. Ever since icFlorida.com went the way of WFTV there just hasn’t been a good source of new on local happenings. Its fresh design and affiliation with the Orlando Sentinel add up to a great local experience without pushing overly ad-laden pages. With restaurant reviews and insight into the local music scene, OrlandoCityBeat could prove to be a reliable source for Orlando entertainment.

I feel like I’ve really been out of the H2O loop for a while now. With a lot of people back home for Christmas, there hasn’t been too much going on. Thursday nights are taking a break for a while, and I haven’t been to life group in a month. I met with Steve tonight to discuss what’s coming up with the life group split, and have a much better understanding of what’s going on now. He’ll be leading the new group, and drawing some people away from Aaron’s group to get things started. He’s also asked that a few of us step up and take a small leadership role to help build closer relationships among everyone, and particularly to make new people feel welcome. It’s individual relationships that make the church, but it’s necessary to spread out those relationships through a lot of members in the church, because there isn’t enough time in the week for the pastors to handle it all. So while I wouldn’t consider myself a natural leader, I think this is something that I should be able to handle. Now, to come up with a name for the new life group…

H2O redefined the definition of unique once again tonight by having a baptism service in a bar. That’s right, nearly a dozen people were baptized in a beer trough. There were also two smaller screens flanking the usual large one that were showing video testimonials during the service. It was an awesome experience and well executed, as usual, even despite some last minute problems with the leaky trough.

I started realizing today just how much I love H2O. At first, I just went because I knew some people there and I liked it better than my old church, but I feel like I have a real connection now, and that’s kind of a new feeling. The portrait class has been going well, and I’m enjoying it more and getting more out of it than I had thought I would. The DiSC assessment results were amazingly accurate, and it was fun to see how the class was divided between the four behavior types—dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness (any guesses what I am?).

Gayle’s mom came up to visit today and took a bunch of us out to lunch today, which was very generous of her. We then went over to Erin’s new place to see all the fresh new paint that was just put up before she moves in. It looks like a very nice place, and I’m a bit jealous that I don’t have such a sweet crib of my own. I’ll have to do something about that soon. Gayle and Kat and myself went on a little thrift store venture, as well, and then they bought costumes for the coming holiday. But alas, despite much urging and pleading, they couldn’t convince me to get a costume for myself.

H2O was good this morning, although a little different than usual since the truck with all of the audio and lighting equipment was broken down. I hung around and talked some, but there wasn’t even anyone to go to lunch with afterwards, so today was mosty a waste. And now that Kirby is gone, I have no one close by to hang out with any more. Maybe I should drive up and stay at his place in TN for the week, since nobody here seems to be around doing anything.

After H2O tonight, I was walking back to my car tonight, which was a couple blocks away at the TD Waterhouse Centre, when this black guy approached me. I’ve had my share of experiences in the past with people asking for money, and have given it to at least one guy who I know didn’t use it on food. So, this guy tonight seemed sincere, and was only asking for seventy-four cents to round out his $9.00 to spend the night at the Salvation Army. I walked with him to my car and gave him three quarters (should I have been more generous?). I’m not sure if he really was honest about his need or not, but I at least got to tell him about H2O. Maybe he’ll come, since he’s probably downtown on most Thursday nights anyways.