by Neta Jackson
the
yada yada
Prayer Group
&
the
yada yada
Prayer Group
GETS DOWN
neta jackson
The Yada Yada Prayer Group © 2003 by Neta Jackson. The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down © 2004 by Neta Jackson.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville,Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920
Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Scripture quotations are taken from the following:
The CEV © 1991 by the American Bible Society. Used by permission.
The Holy Bible, NIV. © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
The NKJV, © 1979, 1980, 1982, 1990 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.
The Holy Bible, NLT, © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.,Wheaton, Illinois. All rights reserved.
The King James Version of the Bible.
“If Not for Grace,” written by Clint Brown. Copyright © 2000 Tribe Music Group (administered by PYPO Publishing) BMI.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59554-474-2 (SE)
Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 QW 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
the
yada yada
Prayer Group
To my sisters in the women’s Bible study
of Reba Place Church
—you know who you are!—
who loved me anyway and stretched my faith.
And to Dave
—best friend, husband, writing partner—
who had the vision for this book in the first place
and believed in me in the process.
CONTENTS
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
Yada Yada Prayer Group Reading Group Guide
Prologue
CHICAGO’S NORTH SIDE—1990
A soft mist clouded the windshield of the Toyota wagon, playing catch-me-if-you-can with the intermittent wipers. Apartment buildings and three-storied six-flats crowded the wet narrow street like great brick cliffs. The woman behind the wheel of the Toyota drove cautiously through the Rogers Park neighborhood of north Chicago, looking for Morse Avenue.
At least it wasn’t the typical macho Chicago thunderstorm: blowing in on big winds, shaking the trees, darkening the skies. Boom! Crash! Flash! Sheets and sheets of rain . . . and then just as quickly rolling away, leaving puddles and sunshine. A midwestern girl at heart, she usually enjoyed a good storm.
But not today. She hated driving in a heavy rain, especially on unfamiliar city streets with her kids in the car.
Mist . . . swipe . . . mist . . . the gentle rain softened even the rough edges of this Chicago neighborhood as she peered past the wipers looking for street signs—
A dark blur rose up suddenly in front of the car through the thin film of mist. Startled, she stomped on the brake. Swipe. The clear windshield showed a dark bedraggled shape—man? woman?— banging a fist on her hood. Heart pounding in her chest, the driver fumbled for the door locks. Oh God, Oh God, what’s happening?
— “Mom-meee!” A frightened wail from the car seat behind her stifled the woman’s first instinct to pound on the horn.
“Shh. Shh. It’s okay.” She forced her voice to be calm for the children’s sake. “Someone walked in front of the car, but I didn’t hit him. Shh. It’s okay.” But she gripped the steering wheel to stop her hands from shaking.
With one final bang on the hood, the figure shoved its fists into the pockets of a frayed army jacket and shuffled toward the driver’s-side window. The driver steeled herself, heart still racing. Now she was going to get yelled at. Or mugged.
But the person hunched down, tapped gently at the window, and whined, “Change, lady? Got any change?”
Anger and relief shredded her anxiety. Just a panhandler. A woman at that, surprisingly small and bony beneath the bulky army jacket and layers of scarves. But the nerve! Stopping her car like that!
The driver rolled down her window a mere crack.
“Mom! Don’t!” commanded her five-year-old man-child in the backseat.
“It’s okay. Give Blanky to your little sister.” She peered at the woman now standing just inches from her face. Dark-skinned, bug-eyed, the army jacket damp and limp, buttoned askew . . . the mist clung to the woman’s uncombed nappy hair like shimmering glass beads.
“Got any change?” the panhandler repeated.
The driver channeled her voice into assertive disapproval. “You shouldn’t jump in front of my car! I could have hit you.”
“Need food for my baby. And diapers,” said the woman stubbornly. She peered though the crack in the window into the backseat. Her voice changed. “You got kids?”
The driver was tempted to roll up the window and move on. Her family had made it a rule not to give money to panhandlers. Even a suburban mom from Downers Grove knew a dollar was more likely to find its way to the corner liquor store than be spent for bread and diapers.
But she hesitated, thinking of her two preschoolers in the backseat. What if the woman really did have kids who needed food and diapers?
Still she hesitated. Then an idea popped into her head. “Uh . . . I was just headed for Uptown Community Church on Morse Avenue.” To pick up my husband, she could have added. Uptown had invited men from several suburban churches to volunteer once a month in an “urban outreach” to homeless men and drug addicts. “If you stop in there, I’m sure somebody will help you.”
The woman, damp and glistening, shook her head. “Been there b’fore. Don’t wanna wear out my welcome. Just a little change, lady? A dollar will do.”
If you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto Me.
The driver sighed. Life would sometimes be a lot simpler if years of Sunday school lessons didn’t follow her around like Jiminy Cricket sitting on her shoulder. What would her husband do? After all, he came to this “outreach” today because he wanted to help people like this woman.
On impulse, she leaned over and pulled up the lock on the passenger side of the car. “Get in,” she said to the woman st
anding in the mist. “I’ll take you to a grocery store.”
“Mom!”
The panhandler scurried around and got in the car. She didn’t put on the seat belt, and the driver tightened her mouth. She couldn’t be this woman’s keeper about everything. She turned and glared at her five-year-old before he opened his mouth again.
Now what? She had no idea where a grocery store was in this neighborhood! She’d passed the Rogers Park Fruit Market a few blocks back, but it probably didn’t carry stuff like diapers. What she needed was a Jewel or Dominick’s.
Or maybe her son was right—this was crazy, picking up this woman!
Then she saw it: Morse Avenue. She could ask at the church where to find a grocery store. Turning onto the busier street, full of small stores with security grids on the windows, she watched the door numbers slide by. There. She slowed beside the old two-story brick storefront that housed Uptown Community Church and turned off the ignition. The wipers died.
The woman in the passenger seat narrowed her eyes. “Thought we was goin’ t’ the store.”
“We are,” the driver chirped brightly, hopping out of the car. “I just have to let my husband know that I’ll be a little late. Be right back.” She opened the back door. “Come on, kids.” Another encouraging look at the woman in the front seat. “I’ll only take a minute.”
With her daughter’s legs wrapped tightly around her waist and the boy plodding along in sulky silence, the mother pulled hopefully on the handle of the glass door. Oh, please open. Relieved when it swung outward, she hustled up the narrow stairs to the second floor that had been remodeled into a large open meeting room. She stood uncertainly at the top of the stairs, looking for her husband among the small groups of volunteers scattered around the room who were talking, some praying. There he was. She caught his eye, and he acknowledged her with a smile. Could I see you a moment? she mouthed as she motioned at him.
The kids hugged their daddy as she explained the situation. But instead of being pleased, his voice rose. “You picked up a panhandler? In the car? Of all the—”
A tall thin man with wispy gray hair and wearing a Mr. Rogers sweater suddenly appeared beside them, smiling warmly. Her husband shook his head, still incredulous. “Uh, Pastor, this is my wife . . . honey, you tell him.”
Feeling foolish now, she described the woman who had stopped her in the street and her intention to get the woman some groceries. “She said she’s been here before. But I’ve got the kids . . . do you think it’s okay?”
Uptown’s pastor nodded, his large Adam’s apple bobbing. “I know the lady. Last time she was here, I tried to get her into a detox program, but she didn’t follow through. Probably not too anxious to see me again.” His warm hazel eyes hinted at the compassion he no doubt handed out as freely as meals and good advice. “She can be a nuisance but is probably harmless. Sure, get her a bag of groceries . . . but as a general rule? Don’t pick up panhandlers.”
Relieved, she got directions to the nearest supermarket and ruffled her son’s hair. “Okay, kids. We’ll just help this lady out then come back and pick up Daddy.” She picked up her daughter and reached out for her son. The boy pulled away from his mother’s hand but allowed himself to be guided back down the stairs and out the door.
“Now be nice,” she muttered under her breath as they approached the Toyota. “We’re supposed to help people, even when it’s inconvenient.” Right.
“Hey, Mom, look!” Her son pointed an accusing finger at the car.
The woman was gone.
1
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS—2002
I didn’t really want to go to the “women’s conference” the first weekend of May. Spending two hundred bucks to stay in a hotel for two nights only forty-five minutes from home? Totally out of our budget, even if it did include “two continental breakfasts, Saturday night banquet, and all conference materials.”
Now if it had been just Denny and me, that’d be different. A romantic getaway, a second honeymoon . . . no teenagers tying up the phone, no dog poop to clean up in the yard, no third grade lesson plans, no driving around and around the block trying to find a parking place. Just Denny and me sleeping late, ordering croissants, fruit plates, and hot coffee for breakfast, letting someone else make the bed (hallelujah!), swimming in the pool . . . now that would be worth two hundred bucks, no question.
I’m not generally a conference-type person. I don’t like big crowds. We’ve lived in the Chicago area for almost twenty years now, and I still haven’t seen Venetian Nights at the lakefront, even though Denny takes Josh and Amanda almost every year. Wall-to-wall people . . . and standing in line for those pukey Port-a-Potties? Ugh.
Give me a small moms group or a women’s Bible study any day—like Moms in Touch, which met at our church in Downers Grove all those years the kids were growing up. We had some retreats, too, but I knew most of the folks from church, and they were held at a camp and retreat center out in the country where you could wear jeans to all the sessions and walk in the woods during free time.
But listening to the cars on I-90 roaring past the hotel’s manicured lawn? Laughing like a sound track at jokes told by highpowered speakers in tailored suits and matching heels? Having to take “after five attire” for a banquet on Saturday night? (Why would a bunch of women do that with no men around to admire how gorgeous we look?)
Uh-uh. Was not looking forward to it.
Still, Avis Johnson, my boss—she’s the principal at the Chicago public school where I teach third grade this year—asked if I’d like to go with her, and that counts for something. Maybe everything. I’ve admired Avis ever since I first met her at Uptown Community Church but never thought we’d be pals or anything. Not just because she’s African American and I’m white, either. She’s so calm and poised—a classy lady. Her skin is a smooth, rich, milkchocolate color, and she gets her hair done every week at a salon. Couldn’t believe it when I found out she was fifty and a grandmother. (I should be so lucky to look like that when Josh and Amanda have kids.) I feel like a country bumpkin when I’m around her. My nondescript dark brown hair never could hold a “style,” so I just wear it at shoulder level with bangs and hope for the best.
Not only that, but when we moved from suburban Downers Grove into the city last summer, I applied to teach in one of the public schools in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, where we live now, and ended up at Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary, where Avis Johnson just happened to be the principal.Weird calling her “Avis” on Sunday and “Ms. Johnson” on Monday.
Avis is one of Uptown Community’s worship leaders and has tried to wean its motley congregation of former Presbyterians, Baptists, “Evee-Frees,” Methodists, Brethren, and No-Churchers from the hymnbook and “order of service” to actually participating in worship. I love the way she quotes Scripture, too, not only from the New Testament, but also from those mysterious Minor Prophets, and Job, and the Pentateuch. I mean, I know a lot of Scripture, but for some reason I have a hard time remembering those pesky references, even though I’ve been in Sunday school since singing “Climb, Climb Up Sunshine Mountain” in the toddler class.
People at Uptown want to be “relevant” in an urban setting, which means cultivating a diverse congregation, but most of us, including yours truly, aren’t too comfortable shouting in church and start to fidget when the service goes past twelve o’clock—both of which seem par for Sunday morning in black churches. Don’t know why Avis stays at Uptown sometimes. Pastor Clark, bless him, has a vision, but for most of us transplants, our good intentions come with all the presumptions we brought from suburbia. But she says God called her to Uptown, and Pastor Clark preaches the Word. She’ll stay until God tells her to go.
Denny and me—we’ve only been at the church since last summer. That’s when Honorable Husband decided it was time white folks—meaning us, as it turned out—moved back into the city rather than doing good deeds from our safe little enclaves in the suburbs. Denny had been v
olunteering with Uptown’s “outreach” program for over ten years, ever since the kids were little, driving into the city about once a month from Downers Grove. It was so hard for me to leave the church and people we’ve known most of our married life. But Denny said we couldn’t hide forever in our comfort zone. So . . . we packed up the dog, the teenagers, and the Plymouth Voyager, exchanged our big yard for a postage stamp, and shoehorned ourselves into a two-flat—Chicago’s version of a duplex—on Chicago’s north side.
But frankly? I don’t really know what we’re doing here. Uptown Community Church has a few black members and one old Chinese lady who comes from time to time . . . but we’re still mostly white in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the U.S.— Rogers Park, Chicago. Josh says at his high school cafeteria, the black kids sit with the black kids, Latino kids sit with Latinos, nerds sit with nerds, whites with whites, Asians with Asians.
Not exactly a melting pot. And the churches aren’t much better. Maybe worse.
In Des Moines, Iowa, where my family lives, I grew up on missionary stories from around the world—the drumbeats of Africa . . . the rickshaws of China . . . the forests of Ecuador. Somehow it was so easy to imagine myself one day sitting on a stool in the African veld, surrounded by eager black faces, telling Bible stories with flannel-graph figures. Once, when I told Denny about my fantasy, he snorted and said we better learn how to relate across cultures in our own city before winging across the ocean to “save the natives.”
He’s right, of course. But it’s not so easy. Most of the people I’ve met in the neighborhood are friendly—friendly, but not friends. Not the kick-back, laugh-with-your-girlfriends, be-crazy, cry-when-you’re-sad, talk-on-the-phone-five-times-a-week kind of friends I had in Downers Grove. And the black couple who lived upstairs? (DINKS, Josh called them: Double-Income-No Kids.) They barely give us the time of day unless something goes wrong with the furnace.
So when Avis asked if I’d like to go to this women’s conference sponsored by a coalition of Chicago area churches, I said yes. I felt flattered that she thought I’d fit in, since I generally felt like sport socks with high heels. I determined to go. At worst I’d waste a weekend (and two hundred bucks). At best, I might make a friend—or at least get to know Avis better.