The Greatest Place To Pray?

Last night at small group there was a bit of a discussion about prayer and the greatest place to do it. The boys all said the bathroom. We, girls, thought that was a bit not right, but unfortunately for me I have to agree with the boys on this one... let me explain....

2 years ago I did a semester abroad in Costa Rica as a fulfillment of my Spanish major. Our home base was Costa Rica, but we also got to travel to Nicaragua, Panama, and Guatemala. I loved my entire time there and I wish I could've stayed there forever.

Now in Panama we visited an indigenous people group called the Kuna Yala. They live on a bunch of islands off the coasts of Panama and Colombia. We lived on an island that was maybe 4 square blocks in size. The left stick hut in the picture is the bathroom that I used for 5 days. The other stick hut is the lobster/crab cage. There was a two-by-four that you had to walk to get to the "bathroom." There was a hollowed out stump that you sat on to do your business and it was usually moist(and you hoped that was just from it being over the ocean). I prayed like Jesus was coming back tomorrow on that thing. It was scary and you could feel the current. It wasn't the most stable structure ever.

Here is a view from... well I was standing on the two-by-four that led to the "bathroom" to take this picture of my host siblings. We slept in hammocks. We ate fish. We lived in solidarity. And in poverty. Of course, they saw themselves as rich because they had a fishing business and they had 30 coconuts. It was a crazy 5 days, but well worth it. My eyes were opened to so many things.

My high school youth pastor had this saying. "God is known, love is felt, lives are changed." Well that saying explained my entire trip.

Maybe I'll blog more about my semester abroad and use my pictures. This is just a small taste of it all. :-)

Track

Yesterday at work, I was ringing up a man's Bible purchase and he said to me, "Do you know Jesus?" And then proceeded to hand me a track. I said, "Yes I do," and tried to give him his track back. I then said something to the effect of you can give this to someone who doesn't. He then said, "Well maybe you should double check and read this." Where he then handed the track back to me. I bit my tongue and smiled and got a real sick feeling in my stomach. He left and my coworkers and I couldn't believe that had just happened.
Now I did read the track. I didn't disagree with it other than it used a lot of words with ith and eth at the end of them(I'm pretty sure this guy was from a KJV or else denomination--not that its a bad thing, but I'm a little more open to other translations). Maybe if I hadn't been on the clock, I would have told this man how inappropriate it was for him to ask me to double check if I know Jesus.
I'm pretty sure it says somewhere to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Then there's this idea that I agree with where yes you make that big first time decision to follow Jesus, but its a daily decision too. I mean I work to be a excellent as I can be, but I do fail sometimes so I do need to make a concious decision. Keep myself in check.
I do find it funny that the guy felt the need to ask me that. But what erks me the most is that he didn't even believe me. The entire transaction took like 3 minutes. How could he come to the conclusion that I'm a dishonest person in that amount of time?
We(all of us up front at the time it happened) did get a pretty good laugh out of it. At least I did hold my tongue with him and not lash out. I mean it could have gotten ugly.