The yada yada prayer group gets down

A robbery, a lynching, and a mourning mother shake up the Yada Yadas.

Jodi Baxter had never felt so violated. The Yada Yada Prayer Group was getting down with God in prayer and praise one night when a heroin-crazed woman barged into her house, demanded their valuables, and threatened them with a ten-inch knife, a knife that drew blood.

They wondered if they would ever get back to normal after this terrifying experience. Jodi assumed they would. After all, they had started praying together at the Chicago Women's Conference the previous spring, and they had been through a lot already as spiritual sisters. This was just one more hurdle to conquer, wasn't it?

But then a well-meaning gesture suddenly incited a backlash of anger in the group, forcing them to confront generations of racial division, pain, and distrust, and stretching their friendship to its limit. And a shocking confrontation in Jodi's third-grade classroom forced her to face her own accountability and learn what true forgiveness really is.