The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught

© 2006 by Neta Jackson.

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Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

Scripture quotations are taken from the following: The Holy Bible, New International Version. © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. The Holy Bible, New Living Translation
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. © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. The New King James Version
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. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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.

Cover design: Brand Navigation, LLC | Mark Mickel |
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Cover Photo: Steve Gardner | Pixelworks Studio |
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Interior design: Inside Out Design & Typesetting

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jackson, Neta.

The yada yada prayer group gets caught / by Neta Jackson.

p. cm.

Summary: “The Yada Yada girls get caught in the lies we all tend to believe about ourselves, God, each other, and life” —Provided by publisher.

ISBN-13: 9-781-59145-361-1
ISBN-10: 1-59145-361-5 (tradepaper)

1.Women—Illinois—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. Christian women—Fiction. 4.
Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. 5. Prayer groups—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3560.A2415Y333  2006

813'.54—dc22

2006017104

Printed in the United States of America
06 07 08 09 10 VG 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my own precious grandchildren,

Havah Noelle and Liam Isaac,

God's gift of life and laughter

Contents

Prologue

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Book Club Questions

Find out how the Yada Yada Story begins

Prologue

WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 2003
11 A.M.—DOWNTOWN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

I
t might not be a champagne-colored Lexus, but Chanda George was having a hard time containing the bubbles of happiness threatening to uncork right there in the backseat of the North Suburban Yellow Taxi.
Ooo, Lord, Lord.Thank You, Jesus.
It felt good to climb into a car and say, “Take me to dis address, mon,” then sit back and let the cabbie drive her around, as if she were a pop star. She'd had it up to
here
with city buses and commuter trains—her only transportation since she'd arrived from Jamaica ten years ago with a green card and a toddler on her hip. Standing at bus stops and on el platforms in Chicago's bitter winters with two, then three babies clinging to her skirts had defined her existence for the past decade. Single mom. Working poor. Tired.

Never again. She was going to call a cab whenever she wanted. Maybe even a limo. Till she got that Lexus with the leather seats, anyway.Wouldn't be long now.

A giggle escaped. She'd won
again
. Not the lottery this time. But that nice man on the telephone told her she'd been “specially selected” to receive one of four major prizes.
Mm-hm.Dis mama be one lucky woman,
she thought.
Can feel it in mi baby finger.
She smoothed out the wrinkles in the silk print skirt hugging her thighs. Then she frowned and sucked her teeth.
Nah, nah. Don' you be takin' all de credit, Chanda George. God's favor be what it is. Smilin' down on you like—

“Mama!” A tug on the sleeve of her silk print blouse jerked her back to the stale interior of the yellow cab, the smell of ancient cigarettes clinging to the upholstery. “Mama! Which prize you gonna get? ” Her twelve-year-old chafed at the tie around his shirt collar, which was rapidly turning damp in the July heat. “Hope you get that red SUV. It's got a TV in the back an' a DVD player!”

“You hush, Thomas.” She pronounced it To-
mas
, the way they called her daddy back in Kingston. “What we need dat big truck for! Mi take cash—or maybe dat free vacation to Hawaii. You like dat, now, eh? ” The taxi slowed and Chanda glanced out the window. “Oh. Must be we here now.Tuck your shirt back in, mister.”

The taxi double-parked, making traffic pull around them. Chanda looked at the red digits on the meter: $16.05. She fished a twenty out of her bulky purse and handed it over the seat. “Keep de change.”

Thomas was already out the door and onto the sidewalk. Chanda struggled out of the backseat, tugging at her slip and the silk print skirt, which threatened to hike up the back of her legs. She took in the building with shaded eyes. She'd expected one of the big downtown hotels—maybe even the press, taking pictures of “the lucky two-time winner” for the evening news. But the building was low-slung, plain, brick. Big green plants inside the doors. Downtown, but not the Loop.

No TV news vans lurking about.

But a cheerful printed sign taped to the double-glass doors said VACATION GETAWAYS—MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. GLASS SLIPPER VACATIONS.WELCOME, PRIZE WINNERS! Chanda smiled and licked her lips. Shrugging her heavy bag over her shoulder, she grabbed Thomas with one hand and pulled open one of the doors with the other.

Didn't matter if Glass Slipper Vacations handed her the prize money in a posh hotel or in a born-again warehouse. She'd won, hadn't she?

This was her lucky day.

2 P.M.—CORNERSTONE MUSIC FESTIVAL,
BUSHNELL, ILLINOIS

Garbage detail.
Gross.

Muttering under his breath, fourteen-year-old Chris Hickman pulled a full bag out of a can, tied it off, dragged it to the side of the service road, and shook out a clean plastic garbage bag. At least garbage pickup was one notch up from cleaning the showers yesterday. Now,
that
was nasty.

Still, once he put in his four hours each day with the work crew of kids from Uptown Community Church, he was free to hang out listening to the music fest bands. He'd counted a dozen music stages on the Cornerstone grounds, some of them starting at noon and going until midnight. The bands on the main stage each night really rocked—Relient K, Rez Band, a bunch of others—even with their Jesus-this, Jesus-that lyrics. Sound jacked up to damage decibels. Hands waving, bodies swaying. People diving off the stage. And they weren't even stoned!

Chris grasped the neck of his green volunteer T-shirt and mopped the sweat off his face, glad that Cornerstone was a hundred miles from Chicago. It wouldn't go down with his homies back on the bricks if they saw him wearing the wrong colors. He was still a “shorty,” a new recruit to the Disciples. Hadn't proved himself yet.

Ducking into the next tent, a booth selling all kinds of Jesus T-shirts, Chris looked around for the trash can. But his eyes snapped to a guy with a spiky Mohawk on one side of the tent airbrushing caricatures onto shirts. Chris sidled over to watch. A white girl with tiny rings in her nose and her lip and a stud in her tongue posed for her caricature. “Make it say, ‘I love Jesus.'” She grinned. “That'll freak out my parents.”

Chris watched the caricature take shape.Not bad. But he could do better.
Had
done better, though he usually had the wall of a building to work with. But the airbrush didn't look that different from using a can of spray paint. “Can I try? ” he blurted.