Hey, friends, so today I set it up so that this website would forward automatically to my new blog. So, if you are seeing this post then you probably are using a reader. So, for all of you for whom that’s the case here’s the new RSS feed that you can add to your reader:

http://bethstedman.com/feed/

Enjoy!

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

Don’t worry I’m not leaving Prague. I’m not even leaving our current home here. But, I am moving around in the blogosphere.

For a while I’ve been meaning to move my blog to www.bethstedman.com instead of using wordpress.com, but it’s always seemed like it would be a pain for me and an annoyance for you, my readers. But, I figure it’s not going to get any easier, right? If I’m going to do it I should do it now, right?

So…

From now on this blog will be located at www.bethstedman.com.

None of the old content will be lost as I imported everything over to the new address, but there will be no more new content here.

So, change my blog in your reader, update your bookmarks, and come visit me at www.bethstedman.com – we’ll have a little virtual “house” warming party J

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

This post is a guest post written by Mathias Schwender. Mathias and his wife Carrie (who I wrote about here) are good friends of ours and incredible people. The other night we were having dinner with them and the topic of abortion and politics came up and Mathias shared some interesting insight. I knew at the time that there were others in the blogosphere writing about this topic lately so I invited Mathias to be my first guest blogger as part of this impromptu synchroblog.

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I am not a woman. I cannot pretend I have felt, lived through, experienced, suffered or wrestled with the decision of giving or not giving birth to an unwanted baby. Yet I have compassion for women in this situation and the last thing I wish for them is to be persecuted, punished or being outcast. In a way I think it is not fair that women are way more affected by giving birth or not giving birth than men – regardless how involved men are.

We as a society and fellow humans must respect and acknowledge that women that do not want to give birth to their child are already put on a burden that seems too much to carry. We have the obligation to come and support and help and endure with them.

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Last year I wrote this about Halloween and I thought I would share it with you all now, since Halloween is just a week away:

“When I dressed up as a child for Halloween, I was captivated by the fantasy, and as I have written recently, the fantasy for me served to provide a glimpse of the divine behind creation. Though I respect parents who decide not to allow their children to participate in Halloween activities due to issues of conscience, that’s not a decision I feel comfortable making for my children. I would hate to deprive them of something of the mystery and “magic” of childhood, something that could well provide a step into trusting the Creator….Linus sat in that pumpkin patch, year after year, going without candy and fun in the hope of meeting his private mythical hero. It seems to me that perhaps Linus had a better grasp of things than most of us. He denied the seen in favor of the unseen. By faith, however misplaced, he sought someone just behind the scenes, perhaps even the One who made the Reality behind the fantasy.
What’s so bad about Halloween? Not much, when I really think about it.” – Igneous Quill Blog

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Tonight I had a few lady friends over to do yoga with me. We lit some candles and prayed and moved together. It was very relaxing and I felt so grateful to be able to do it. Afterwards we spontaneously decided to do dinner. The husbands joined us and we had a great time talking casually about a vast variety of topics (just for an idea of what we covered: we went from talking about the Lord’s Supper, to the resurrection, to politics, to abortion, to blogging and much more). It was a wonderfully relaxed and comfortable time with friends, filled with good conversation and plenty of laughter. Thank you, Jesus, for friends like these.

So, here’s what we did for yoga and prayer this week:

I began by reading part of Psalm 107 from The Message:

“Oh, thank God – he’s so good!
His love never runs out.
All of you set free by God, tell the world!
Tell how he freed you from oppression,
Then rounded you up from all over the place,
from the four winds, from the seven seas.”

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So, sometimes I get in these crazy day dreams. My mind starts to wander and I come up with these full blown ideas that are so big that even as I’m dreaming them I know they will never come to be. Lately I’ve had a lot of that… so recently I was thinking about the various people I know in my life here in Prague and about different things that some of them have told me they would love to do someday if they could (from hosting prayer retreats and counseling people, to building an arts community and teaching art classes, to having a café or coffee house) and I was thinking about some of the things I have recently been dreaming about and hoping for lately (having a yoga studio). Then I started thinking about The School of Life in London. And then my thoughts just took off and I started thinking about a place that could be sort of like the School of Life but could fit my specific community here in Prague and combine all the gifts and passions of the people around me. Anyway, the following write up is the result of that day dream… just thought I’d share another of my crazy day-dreaming schemes with all of you J enjoy…

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So, I just entered this photrade contest and I would love your votes J The prize is a new camera (which my husband would be very excited about since he has been wanting to do more photography but I always hog the camera). So, if you have a chance today click on the link and vote for me. Thanks, friends!

Vote for my photo!vote

Rejoicing in the journey –
Beth Stedman

EDIT: it turns out that you can only vote if you are a photrade member. So if you are a member then please vote for me. If not then wish me luck

Today was a really good day. This morning Bryan and I made pancakes and I put homemade pear sauce on them that I made yesterday – it was so yummy. Over breakfast we were chatting and came up with a fun idea for a photography project that we are going to do (even if it ends up just being the two of us doing it). Basically, the idea is to have a few different photographers who all commit to taking one picture a week of “life in Prague” for one year and then we will post the pictures up on a web site. Bryan’s been working on creating the site all day. I’m really excited about it and feel like it will be a fun project that will be challenging, but not too overwhelming.

Then I spent some time catching up on some blogs and looking at photography sites and getting inspired. I love the blogs I read and it was so great to spend some time reading through posts from this past week. I also spent some time reading on of the many yoga books I have to read for my certification program. The one I was reading today deals with anatomy and yoga – it was so interesting.

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Yesterday was a financially stressful day for Bryan and I. We got an unexpected yearly bill from the electric company (long story), we found out that we largely underestimated what we owe on our 2007 taxes (even longer story), and the tenant renting our condo in the states told us he would not be able to finish out the lease as he will be relocating within a month. Honestly, even with our recent job loss and the reduced income we have been living on I hadn’t really felt truly panicky until last night.

Then this morning I remembered that today is Blog Action Day and that the topic for this year is Poverty. As I read the list of 88 Ways to DO Something About Poverty Right Now and glanced through some of the headings for the blogs people are writing about this topic I was humbled. I might not know how I’m going to pay this month’s mortgage, but there are many around the world who don’t even have a roof over their heads. The meals on my table lately might be made up of pretty simple fair with lots of beans and rice and oatmeal, but there are many around the world who don’t have any food on their table and who would give anything for the simple meals my husband and I enjoy. I might have been surprised by an unexpected electricity bill, but there are many around the world who have lived without electricity their whole lives. My worry was suddenly put in sharp perspective.

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So, this is an election year and as such I feel like I should join the band wagon and talk about politics a little (yeah, I know I’m joining late in the game, but better late than never, right?). Frankly, I’ve never liked talking about politics – I felt uncomfortable talking about politics. I think that is mostly because I have for most of my life been incredibly uneducated on the issues. I usually just voted whatever my parents or church or friends said I should vote and believed them…something I’m not really proud to admit, but there it is. I think the reason I really wasn’t educated about politics was that I just didn’t care, any time politics came up (which was incredibly rare in my circle) I felt like there wasn’t really a good option, like I didn’t really agree with any of the sides and like I could see good and bad in both and I just didn’t want to have to pick one. In the past I had a few opinions that I did choose a side on but the side I generally leaned towards wasn’t the same side of a lot of the people around me so I usually kept those opinions to myself. Then I moved out of the country…

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