Providence Downtown – Roots by the River

Title – A Time to Speak

Author – Southeastern Idaho Girl, Nadine Brandes (facebook)

Publisher – Phoenix: Enclave Publishing, 2015

I pre-ordered this book and received it last fall, hot off the press. It is book #2 in Nadine’s trilogy, Out Of Time.

It was a slow start and walk through the opening chapters of the book.  I am working on attaching myself to the characters. As I reached page 61, I caught some special insight on the two lead heroes’ names:

Solomon Hawke speaks:

The definition of my name, Solomon, is shalom.  I guess you could say I’ve always felt that defined my purpose in life.

And then as the blond-haired Enforcer, he corrected Parvin Blackwater on the meaning of her name:

“No, no, look.  You have to break it down.  Par is Scandinavian for Peter, which means rock.  And Vin is a Latin name meaning conquering.  There you have it:  conquering rock.”

I forget sometimes that Parvin is simply a teenage girl, swirling in emotions and learning to die to her own desires for the good of others.  But she is growing more resolute, battling against those inward desires to simply make a name for herself.

On page 112, she confesses,

How can I summarize everything I’ve learned?  “Healed from myself–from my own stagnancy.  From selfish desires.  From misplaced faith.  I’m finally following God instead of my own desires.  In doing so, I’ve noticed how broken the world is–how broken I made it with my selfish sin.  Not just that, but I can fix parts of it.”

Solomon, the quieter and more stable of the pair, later in the book reminds everyone of the One who will be the true Hero in the fight for shalom:

“‘Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,’ says the Lord; ‘I will place him in the safety for which he longs,'” Psalm twelve, verse five” (p. 331).

Parvin is catching on . . .

And it is on page 338 that everything becomes crystal clear to Parvin Blackwater:

When we reach land, then I’ll tell him that I’m going to destroy the Wall . . . both stone and projection.  For good.  Destruction.  It is my calling.  I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.  I am the only one who can do this.  God has provided me with everything–the connections, the passion, the purpose (338).

Hmm . . . with all the talk about walls and “The Wall” in modern-day 2016 American politics, perhaps we need a little of Parvin in our lives.  What do you think the typical Christian teen is thinking in our country?

For a little while in the book, I got lost among the ice and penguins but in the end our author, Nadine Brandes, came out strong.  I am warming up to the characters, and it’s a real cliffhanger at the end, hooking you even better than A Time To Die ( here are my musings on book one).

So I am curious about Skelley Chase . . . what is going on in this guy’s sketchy head?

Conclusion:  Nadine has a passion for young students to find their purpose in God and fight for shalom in future days. I applaud that cause immensely.  Second, she builds a young adult romance without sex.  Imagine that.  Third, she adds discussion questions to the end of this book.  And because I work for the Idaho Falls Rescue Mission, I zeroed in on this question by Nadine.  It’s a political zinger:

Cultures often have a habit of labeling people.  In A Time To Speak, the Council decided that Radicals and the poor aren’t worth keeping in the USE.  In fact, they sell some of them as slaves and send the others off for hard labor.  What dangers are there in labeling people?  Do you ever find yourself labeling people (homeless, different ethnicities, “nerds,” etc.) and treating them differently because of that label?  What does the Bible say about this? (See Deuteronomy 10:17-19, Acts 10:34-35, and Romans 2:11, 12:18). 

So what should Christians in America do with the homeless and/or immigrants and refugees?