Week 9 Part 1: When Satan Strikes

Satan continues to strike and strike at us and our work at the Crossroads office. At the end of last week (Week 8), Satan made his presence known in our office which is inside a larger building with other companies like World Vision.

In the middle of our workday, writer Pearl Mohankumar walked into our office and said “We need to leave the office immediately, there is a fire next door.”

Crossroads interns observing the fire connecting to our office building.

Looking dumbfounded at her and slightly questioning her sanity, we began casually packing up our stuff and shutting the office down. Walking outside, the air was full of thick, dry smoke that was beginning to cloud our path as we made our way across the street. After making sure we had all 18 heads safe and sound, we waited, observed the firefighters and prayed for the scene that was going up in smoke before our eyes. When we realized the fire was not going to be put out anytime soon, we headed home and continued our work from there. Thankfully, God’s presence was at the scene, no one was harmed in the fire, our office building survived and but we unfortunately had to abandon our precious peanut M&M’s.

At the beginning of the week, we realized we are faced with deadlines that are crunching down rapidly. With many, many projects left to be done for IndyCC, our team continues working diligently to finish up what projects we have left before our intern-director, Josh Coy, returns for the final week.

As if that wasn’t enough, Satan never fails to make our days harder. All week he has made working in the office a difficult process. On Thursday, we came to the office to find that the wifi was completely shot, meaning we couldn’t communicate with our clients, use the website we use to organize all of our work, Trello, or access our projects which are all stored on Google Drive. Without wifi, we couldn’t progress far. We fled to the Dwight, where the wifi was working, even though it wasn’t the greatest setup.

Madison Amalfitano reviewing film shots at the Dwight.

Thankfully, we have a Savior who reigns over everything, including the powers of Satan. God has provided us with strong working wifi, drive and pristine focus to get all of our work done. We are even receiving feedback from our main IndyCC clients to further the development on the conference.

It’s cool how God works that way. He presents us with trials and sufferings here on Earth. Trials and sufferings that test our faith and reliance on Him. As we continue to study 1 Peter this second half of the summer, 1 Peter 4:12-13 sheds light onto our sufferings on this Earth:

“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery trials that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4: 12-13 NIV).

From what 1 Peter tells us, and also from what we’ve learned this week, our suffering on Earth serves a purpose and that purpose is rejoicing in the Lord. Seeing these projects come together will be just a snip-it of His glory for the world.