The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Tough

CBN.com In book four of The Yada Yada Prayer Group series, Neta Jackson takes the prayer group to an even deeper level. They've been together a whole year, and so many good things are happening! But that's just when the Enemy knows to attack—when our guard is down. Suddenly everything seems to be falling apart. Will the Yada Yadas buckle under this new crisis of faith? Read an excerpt below.

Prologue

The four-door sedan swung into a Permit Only parking spot, coughed, and died as if it knew it was trespassing. “What’s wrong?” The young woman in the front passenger seat turned to her companion. “Will it start again?” When they finished what they had come to do, she wanted to be able to leave.

The dark-haired youth—twenty or twenty-one—rolled up the windows and reached into the back for his backpack. “Don’t worry, Sara. It just got over heated. It’ll cool off by the time we get back. Come on.”

Reluctantly, the girl opened the car door and stepped out onto the concrete of the bi-level parking lot at Northwestern University. A breeze off Lake Michigan a hundred yards away made her shiver in spite of the mid-May sunshine. That’s the way it always was in Chicago—cooler by the lake.

She grabbed her sweater and pulled it around her shoulders before locking the car door. She shivered again, wishing she could’ve worn jeans and a sweatshirt. Would’ve been perfect for a cool, sunny day. But no, Kent said if he was going to wear a suit and tie, she needed to wear a dress. After all, they were representing their Cause and wanted to be taken seriously.

Huh.When it came to supporting the Cause, she’d rather be back at the office stuffing envelopes. She wasn’t good at this activist stuff.

“Here.” Kent pulled a bundle of pamphlets out of his backpack and handed them to her. “You start with this row; I’ll go down the other side.” He moved off, sticking pamphlets under one windshield wiper, then another. She thought he looked a little silly in his black suit and tie with a ratty backpack slung over his shoulder, but she had to admit
he was good-looking in a thin-faced, gangly sort of way. His straight, dark-brown hair, so carefully combed back, had a cute way of falling over his forehead, giving him a boyish look. Not that she would ever tell him. He was quite determined to be a serious grownup.

“Sara! Get busy!” His shout from several cars away made her jump, and she hustled to catch up.She worked fast, sticking pamphlets under windshield wipers, eager to show she was committed to the Cause . . . or maybe eager to get the pamphlets on the cars and get out of there before they got caught. At least the top level of the parking lot was only
half-full. Sunday afternoon wasn’t a high-traffic day at the university; they’d be done in ten minutes and could get out of here.

A middle-aged man carrying a briefcase topped the short flight of stairs to the open second level and headed for his car, keys jangling. She pretended not to notice and kept moving from car to car. But a quick side-glance told her he’d stopped, reached for the pamphlet on his car window, and scanned its front page.

“Hey!” he yelled. “You can’t leave your garbage here! This is
private property!”

Sara glanced anxiously at Kent, one row over. “Keep moving,” he hissed. “For all that guy knows, we’re students here and have every right.”

The man waved the pamphlet angrily over his head. “At least
have the guts to present your wacko ideas personally,” he shouted, “instead of blitzing cars anonymously!”

The invitation was too much for the young man. “Good idea!
We’ll do that!” He waved back, a smile plastered on his face.

Muttering, the man started to drop the pamphlet on the ground, hesitated, and then tossed it into his car.

“He took it!” Kent said gleefully.

Sara frowned. “Did not. He just didn’t want to drop it. Those
professor types never litter.”

“Doesn’t matter. He took it.” The young man fished a campus map out of his backpack. “C’mon. Let’s go to the student center.” He looked up, scanning the buildings. “I think it’s right over there.”

“No, Kent. Let’s just do the cars.” But he was already heading in long strides for the exit stairs.

She sighed and followed. Under other circumstances, she’d enjoy a stroll around the Big Ten university campus, which had been practically in her backyard all her life. The grounds were beautiful this time of year. Soaring spires mixed with modern architecture. Graceful willow trees coming into bud, swaying in the breeze. Lake Michigan lapping along the boulder-studded shoreline. Flowering bushes and winding walks everywhere. Why hadn’t she applied here? Her grades and SAT scores had been topnotch. She’d graduated from a prestigious high school here on the North Shore two years ago. But what was it Kent had said? “You gotta decide what’s most important—dedication to the Cause or getting a so-called education watered down by all this politically correct mumbo-jumbo.”

Right. She admired Kent’s dedication to the Cause. He’d taken her under his wing when the “popular” girls at New Trier acted as if she didn’t exist. He explained things to her. Told her people had a right to stick up for what they believed.

She just didn’t like conflict and confrontation, that’s all.

They found the Norris University Center along the narrow
campus drive and pulled open the big glass doors. “It’s Sunday,” she murmured. “Won’t be many students.”

“That’s OK,” he said. “More opportunity to leave the truth
unhindered.” He headed for the nearest bulletin board—crowded with fliers announcing everything from roommates needed to frat parties to the next theater production. “Heathens,” Kent muttered, punching a pushpin into the bulletin board, leaving their pamphlet front and center.

They scurried down the wide stairs to the ground level, where Willie’s Food Court, a cafeteria-style eatery, and Willie’s Too— dispensing gourmet coffee, sub sandwiches, smoothies, and pizza— opened out into a large room with square wooden tables and booths along the far windows looking out over the Northwestern Lagoon. Several students sat at the scattered tables with drinks or sandwiches,
talking or studying.

Kent straightened his tie and approached the first populated
table. “I think you’ll be interested in these facts.” He thrust a
pamphlet at a young woman bent over a large textbook.

The student glanced at the paper he held out to her. Her eyes narrowed. “Get that out of my face, or I’ll call the campus cops!”

He barely flinched. “Not open to the free exchange of ideas? I thought—”

“I mean it! Get away from me!” The student grabbed her book and flounced to a table on the far side of the room.

Sara tugged on her companion’s sleeve. “We should’ve worn casual clothes,” she murmured anxiously. “They know we’re not students, dressed up like this.”

Kent ignored her and headed for two male students in T-shirts slouched in one of the booths, watching the hanging TV. One ignored them, eyes glued to the ball game; the other took the pamphlet, shrugged, and tossed it on the table.

Sara was relieved when they finally left the student center. At
least it was Sunday. No classes. The campus proper was practically deserted. But as they pushed open the double-glass doors, Kent studied a bright flier taped to the glass. “See that? There’s a Jazz Fest going on. It’s gotta be over soon.” He studied his map. “Come on!” Grabbing her hand, they followed the sidewalk signs pointing toward the Pick-Steiger Concert Hall.

The wait wasn’t long. Soon a rowdy, laughing mix of students in shorts and bare midriffs, dreads, and buzz cuts pushed through the glass doors of the concert hall, rubbing shoulders with jazz fans from the local community. Once again, Kent dug into his backpack, pushed a stack of pamphlets into Sara’s hands, and hustled to catch up with any moving target.

Sucking up some courage, the girl held out her pamphlets—
mostly to females—steeling herself for the typical reactions: “Keep your stupid trash.” . . . “You believe this stuff?” . . . “Guess it’s a free county, even for weirdos.” . . . “Stuff it up your—!”

The words she’d practiced rose to her defense. “Thought we had free speech in this country! So much for tolerance.”

Her defenses soon crumbled, and she finally fled to a grassy
knoll with the rest of her pamphlets, sinking onto a bench beneath a graceful weeping willow, its long tendrils bursting with the bright green buds of May. Kent found her there ten minutes later, her

wedgies off, rubbing her arches. “My feet hurt,” she moaned. “Let’s go.”

“Your feet hurt!” He snorted but sank down onto the bench
beside her. “Passed out all my pamphlets?” He made a face when he saw the remainders. “Want me to pass those out?”

She shook her head. “No! Let’s just go.”

***

After a few turnovers, the old sedan started, and they
headed up Sheridan Road, back toward the posh bedroom communities along Lake Michigan’s North Shore. But a few blocks north of the university, Kent took a left at the traffic light at Sheridan and Lincoln Avenue.

Sara frowned. “What are you doing?”

Kent shrugged, pulling over to the curb along the tree-shaded street of large, brick homes, with ivy climbing up the wraparound verandas and neatly manicured lawns. “Might as well finish the job. We can stuff a few mailboxes, and we’re done.”

It was useless to argue. He was already out of the car.
Reluctantly, she took several of the remaining pamphlets and scurried up the sidewalk, leaving a pamphlet tucked in the iron railing on one set of steps, in the mailbox at the next house. When her supply was gone, she hung back as her companion, still holding a few pamphlets, walked up the steps to a neat, brick two-story with ivy hugging the walls. Boldly lifting the mail slot in the door, he started to push the pamphlet through . . . when the door suddenly opened.

It was hard to tell who was more taken aback—the pale young man on the stoop, hand outstretched, frozen in time . . . or the tall, goateed African-American in the gray velour sweatsuit coming out of the house, car keys in his hand.

The man spoke. “What do you want?” The tone was mildly
hostile.

“Uh, don’t think you’d be interested.” Kent started to back away.

“What’s this?” The man snatched the pamphlet out of the young man’s hand, scanning the first page. He flipped to the second. Even from where Sara stood, she could see the muscles in the man’s face tighten like a clock face being overwound. Her heart clutched. She saw the man stab his finger into Kent’s chest, right in the middle of his tie, forcing Kent to back down a step. “If I ever catch you . . . in
this neighborhood . . . ever again . . . with this—this—”

“Mark?” A woman’s voice floated out from inside the house. “Is someone at the door?” The accent was foreign—British or African or something.

“Git!” the man hissed. Kent nearly tripped backing down the
steps, but he recovered his dignity and sauntered back to where Sara waited anxiously on the sidewalk. His withering look still focused on Sara and Kent, the man called into the house, “Uh, nobody. Just some environmental types wanting signatures for Greenpeace or something.” Then, glancing at the pamphlet he still held in his hand, the man shoved it into the ivy flanking the doorway till it was hidden, stepped back into the house, and shut the door with an angry thud.

When he and Sara were about two houses away, with the tension released, Kent dissolved into laughter.

Excerpted from The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Tough, by Neta Jackson, Copyright 2005, by Integrity Publishers . Used by permission.