2-in-1 Yada Yada (9 page)

“Yes,” came the reply. “On the floor with the sofa cushions. Go figure.”

MY TRAVEL ALARM WENT OFF under my pillow. 5:50 a.m. Parting the blackout curtains, I could tell the sun was already up. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I pulled on my jeans and sweater from last night, splashed water on my face—a shower would have to wait—and slipped out the door of our suite.

Meeting Room 7—an interior room created with expandable walls—was dark when I pulled open the door. I'd forgotten the list and couldn't remember if anyone had signed up for the five-to-six time slot. Guess not. I felt around until I found a light switch, but the light was so bright with only me in the room, I felt like a captured spy about to be interrogated. I turned it off and propped the door open.

Part of me wasn't sure I knew how to pray for a whole hour— especially without my morning cup of coffee. But maybe this was a chance to practice praying like some of the other women in the prayer group. For a while I walked around the circle of chairs in the dim room, silently praising God. Florida or Nony or Avis would've been saying, “Praise You, Jesus!” or “You are God Almighty from whom all blessings flow!” out loud, but I was chicken. Some hotel employee going past might hear me and think I was weird.

Remembering how Nony “prayed Scripture,” though, gave me another idea—but I hadn't brought my Bible downstairs. I checked out the room by the light from the hallway and spied a Bible someone had left in one of the other prayer circles, a Contemporary English Version—I hadn't seen that one before. Dragging a chair near the open door—I still wasn't ready to “pray big” in a lighted room all by myself—I turned to the Psalms and began reading out loud. “The wicked try to trap and kill good people, but the Lord is on their side, and he will defend them when they are on trial.” Oh, that was a good verse. Right on the money. I skimmed the psalm. “The Lord protects his people, and they can come to him in times of trouble.”

What if I turned Psalm 37 into a prayer for Delores and her family? I tried it out loud.“Oh God, the wicked are trying to trap and kill Delores's son, but I know You are on their side, and You're going to defend them during this trial . . . You protect Your people, Lord, and Delores can come to You in this time of trouble.” Goosebumps tickled the back of my neck. The words rang in my ear in a new way. Not third person but first person.
I
know
You are on their side . . . You protect
Your people . . .
Did I
know
this—really? Could I declare it in faith?

I tried out several other psalms this way—and nearly jumped out of my skin when the lights suddenly flooded the room.

“Jodi! What are you doing in the dark?” Nony and Hoshi had come into the room. Both had sweats on.

“Uh, I was praying for Delores and her son . . . what time is it?”

“Seven. We came for the group prayer.”

Seven already? I could hardly believe it. An hour ago I wasn't sure how I was going to fill up the time.

Within a few minutes, nearly the whole group showed up in various stages of morning dress—minus Delores, Edesa, and Stu, of course. Even Yo-Yo, though she sat off to the side, arms folded like a principal doing classroom observations. Yesterday morning, no one had shown up except Nony and Avis—plus me, tagging after Avis. But this morning, it was full house.

I'd always thought of “group prayer” as taking turns praying. But I was about to be introduced to no-holds-barred, every-woman-for-herself prayer. Avis, Adele, and Chanda moved around, praying out loud, all at the same time. Florida and Nony held forth on their knees. Ruth and Hoshi anchored their chairs, but I could tell they were praying.

I was the only one who saw Stu come into the room. I scanned her face. Bad news? Good news? “Stu! What's happened?”

The prayers abruptly stopped. Stu took a deep breath. “He's okay—shot in the back, but not fatal—”

“Thank
ya,
Je
-sus!” Florida shouted. Chanda gripped her head and started jumping up and down. Several burst into tears and dropped to their knees. “Hallelujah!” . . . “You are a
mighty
God!” . . . “Ha! Satan, you're a liar!” filled the room for several moments.

I wanted to say, “Hush! Hush! Let's hear what happened.” But obviously some of the other women had heard what they needed to hear. Delores Enriques still had her son! José was not dead! The “enemy” had been thwarted!

GRADUALLY THE STORY CAME OUT—what Stu knew of it, anyway. She and Edesa had not been allowed to see José, only family. They'd paced and prayed in the waiting room for a couple of hours while José had surgery to insert a tube in his chest cavity— she wasn't sure why. At one point several police came in, asking to speak to José Enriques. Stu and Edesa could only wait helplessly. Finally Delores came out, worry mixed with relief.

Evidently José had taken his siblings to the park near their house in the Little Village neighborhood. José's sister Emerald said a bunch of gangbangers—Spanish Cobras—were hanging in the park, “doin' business.” José had told them to move somewhere else
(Unbelievable! Pretty brave for a fourteen-year-old,
I thought) so the kids could play. The Cobras started yelling, so José had corralled the little ones and was hustling them out of the park, when . . . here Emerald said she didn't know
what
happened. But she heard car tires screeching, then some gunshots—and suddenly her brother was down on the ground, groveling in pain.

Stu said Delores had broken down weeping at that point in the story. “It could have been Emerald—the twelve-year-old—or any of her ‘babies.' ” The police weren't making any statements at this point, Stu added, but witnesses in the park said José got hit by a bullet when a bunch of Latin Kings showed up and started a shouting match over Cobras doing business on King turf.

“King turf?” I blurted.

Yo-Yo spoke up. “Cobras makin' a
big
mistake if they mess with the Latin Kings. Kings are
everywhere,
and they don't take kindly to anybody messin' with their turf.”

I stared at her. How did she
know
that? Prison education? But I'd heard enough. Kids getting hit by stray bullets just going to play in the park? I brushed aside the nagging thought that I'd been quick to assume José himself was in a gang, just because he got shot. I latched on to the most important thing: Delores still had her son; they'd get through this.

The big-faced clock in the room said nearly eight o'clock. Most of us still needed to get showered and dressed for the day— in a hustle if we didn't want to miss breakfast. Several others must have had the same idea, because we started drifting toward the door. Crisis was over.

But I heard Yo-Yo's voice again. “What are you guys going to do?”

I turned back, prepared to offer my short list: shower, clothes, breakfast.

“How do you mean, do?” Ruth asked in that funny, backward way of hers.

“About Delores. What are you going to do about Delores?”

There was an awkward silence, which Yo-Yo took as an invitation. “You guys been talkin' all night to the Big Guy upstairs about Delores's boy. Looks like He gave a pretty good answer . . . for starters. But everybody just goin' to go home? Like this prayer group never happened? Delores might still need you, you know.”

9

L
ater, sitting with Avis and Florida in the Sunday morning worship service in the ballroom, I thought about what Yo-Yo had said. For somebody who wasn't into the “Jesus thing,” Yo-Yo had sure seemed to nail the “Jesus thing” that time.

Avis had said it was a good question. “Let's meet one more time after the morning worship and talk about what we want to do.”

Sunday worship was the fourth main session of the weekend— not counting the banquet—and to tell the truth, the pounding gospel music had begun to burrow its way into my soul . . . “The devil is defeated! We are blessed!”

That was true enough this morning. Last night I, for one, had thought Delores might be attending her son's funeral. Not Avis, though. She obviously wasn't about to accept defeat—hers or anyone else's—as long as she had breath to claim victory. That took faith—a lot more faith than I seemed to have. Funny. I'd always presumed I had a strong faith.
Let those Commies come and send me
to Siberia unless I recant! Ha! Do your worst!
But on an everyday level, my mind tended to weigh in all the “realities.”
Most people
don't get healed from cancer . . . Denny got bumped from the high school
coaching job he wanted . . . A lot of poor people pray, but they still go to
bed hungry . . .

The music was going over the top. “I'm coming back to the heart of worship . . . it's all about You, Jesus . . .”

I closed my eyes, for once oblivious to what Florida and Avis were doing.
I want to learn how to worship You, Jesus. I want a bigger
faith. I want to learn how to pray. And, yes, I want to know what
You created me for . . .

When the morning speaker—Evangelist Olivia Mitchell again—asked, “Who wants God to show you who He created you to be? Who wants to step into your spiritual destiny? Come on down here to the front. We're going to pray for you,” I planted my feet firmly. No way was I going up. I didn't want to cry or have hands put on me or get laid out. I could pray right here in my row, thank you.

But when both Florida and Avis went up—and I saw Nony and a couple of others from our prayer group up front—I reached down for some courage.
Jodi Baxter, didn't you just tell God you wanted to
learn more about worship . . . about faith . . . about prayer . . . about
yourself? Well, go get prayed for, girl!

Fortunately for my shaking knees, there were so many women who came to the front for prayer that the speaker just touched each woman on the forehead with oil and kept praying as she passed down the line. But even that brought tears to my eyes, to feel that touch, to be included in the prayer. I had the strange sense I was being sent on an adventure into the unknown . . . without a map.

WHEN THE SERVICE WAS OVER, the ten of us in Prayer Group Twenty-Six—Edesa had stayed at the hospital with the Enriques family—gathered once more in Meeting Room 7. One of the other prayer groups was also meeting in the room, so we pulled our chairs closer together in order to hear.

“Well,” Avis said, “Yo-Yo asked what we're going to do about Delores. What are you thinking, Yo-Yo?”

Yo-Yo slouched in her chair like a denim-clad log, shoulders and fanny barely touching the chair, her legs stretched out their full length, her hands jammed in the pockets of her bib overalls. “Yeah. The way I see it, something got started here, and you guys stood up with Delores in a big way with that chain prayer thing. But it ain't over yet.”

We all glanced at each other, then a few suggestions trickled out.

“If we had her phone number, we could call her, let her know we're still praying for her.”

“Or maybe some of us could visit José in the hospital—Cook County, wasn't it, Stu?”

I took a leap. “I've been thinking about what Yo-Yo said. There's no reason we couldn't continue this prayer group.”

“Oh, really!” Adele snorted. “My guess is the folks in this room live all over the city. Lawndale . . . Little Village . . . Austin . . . and half a dozen other neighborhoods. Not an easy commute to get together at 7:00 a.m. for a prayer meeting.”

I could feel my ears turning red. But I pressed on. “I realize that. But if we had each other's telephone numbers and e-mail addresses—”

“What? Like a phone chain?” Florida asked.

Stu groaned. “That could take forever to get around—or get stuck in somebody's voice mail.”

“But how about e-mail?” I pressed. “If we had each other's e-mail addresses and each created a ‘group list' in our address book, then if someone has a prayer request, they could send it to the whole group with one e-mail.”

The idea sat out there for a moment or two, then Florida piped up. “I like that. That works for me.”

Stu tucked a long blonde lock behind her ear. “But maybe not everyone has e-mail. Let's see hands of those who don't.”

Yo-Yo and Chanda were the only ones who waggled their hands.

“Not to worry, Yo-Yo. My e-mail is your e-mail.” Ruth patted Yo-Yo's knee. “I'll bring it to the café when I get my rugelach.”We had no idea what rugelach was, but the rest of us couldn't help but laugh.

“But what about Delores and Edesa?” Stu pressed. “What if they don't have e-mail?”

“I'll call them and find out.” I lobbed the ball right back into her corner. “Did you get Delores's phone number last night?” I dug around in my tote bag and pulled out my notebook. “Look, I'll send this around and everyone can put down their e-mail addy
and
their phone number. Snail-mail address, too. Then we can make a list—can't tell when it might come in handy.”

“You are the queen of list-makers, girl!” Florida crowed.

“Um,” said Hoshi. We all looked at her. The Japanese student had said so little in the group that even “um” got our attention. “I have e-mail, fine. But if we create a group list in our address book, we need a name. Not just ‘Number Twenty-Six.' ”

Chuckles rippled around the circle again.

“Just call it Prayer Group,” said Stu. She sounded annoyed.

“Prayer Group, yada yada, whatever,” said Yo-Yo.

Ruth twisted her motherly self to the side and looked at Yo-Yo like she'd just said something brilliant. “I like that. The Yada Yada Prayer Group. It means something, I think.”

“Yeah. ‘Whatever,' ” echoed Adele. She shook her head as though she couldn't believe we were having this conversation.