The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down (Yada Yada Prayer Group, Book 2) [Paperback]

Neta Jackson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Yada Yada Prayer Group, Book 2 | Publication Date: August 10, 2004

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

I had never felt so violated! The Yada Yada Prayer Group was "gettin' down" with God in prayer and praise one night when a heroin-crazed woman barged into my house, demanded our valuables, and threatened us with a 10-inch knife--a knife that drew blood.

We wondered if we'd ever get back to normal after this terrifying experience. I assumed we would. After all, we'd started praying together at the Chicago Women's Conference last spring, and we'd been through a lot already as spiritual sisters. This was just one more hurdle to conquer, right?

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jackson examines the many facets of forgiveness, grace, racial prejudice and healing in this enjoyable follow-up to The Yada Yada Prayer Group, which has 75,000 copies in print. The adventures of the praying, ethnically diverse group of Chicago Christians, "that drawer full of crazy-colored, mismatched socks," are about to accelerate. Jodi Baxter's physical scars from her car accident continue to heal, but her emotional turmoil returns in the form of nightmares. She's further challenged when her friend Adele Skuggs's elderly and failing mother mistakenly believes Jodi's husband, Denny, is a man from the past who lynched her brother. Adele finds her prejudices against all white people simmering and takes a hiatus from the prayer group. Further disaster strikes when the women are robbed at knifepoint by a crazed drug addict. Only forgiveness and prayer will heal the women's guilt and fear. The talented Jackson peoples her novels with delightful characters, and there's enough detail about the meals to make even a picky eater's mouth water. The scenes detailing different church services can be too lengthy, and a plot contrivance involving a boy's surprising identity strains credibility. Laced with humor, fine description, and interesting and realistically flawed characters, however, this well-paced story is certain to keep fans turning the pages.
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About the Author

Neta (pronounced Nee tuh) Jackson and her husband, Dave, are an award-winning writing team, best known for the Trailblazer books -- a forty-book series of historical fiction about great Christian heroes with 1.5 million in sales -- and "Hero Tales: a Family Treasury of True Stories from the Lives of Christian Heroes" (Vols 1-4). Neta wrote the wildly successful "The Yada Yada Prayer Group" and has collected many honors for her various works, including a C.S. Lewis Award and a Gold Medallion Award.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 403 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson; Ex-Library edition (August 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591451515
• ISBN-13: 978-1591451518
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,127,683 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

As a kid I was crazy about horses and animals of all kinds and loved to draw (horses, mostly). Since I didn't have a horse, I wrote stories about them instead. My high-school English teacher sent one of my stories (about a couger) to a Scholastic magazine writing contest and it won First Place . . . and the rest, as they say, is history. I wanted to be a writer!

I grew up on the campus of a private Christian school in Seattle where my parents were teachers. A lovely childhood, though fairly sheltered. But college took me back to the Chicago area and a whole new world. My husband and I settled in the Chicago area soon after getting married, and even though we both grew up in solid Christian homes, our search to deepen our faith took the form of Christian community for much of our family life raising kids. Eventually the critical issue of racial reconciliation became the call of God upon our life, and we chose to immerse ourselves in African American and multi-cultural churches. Our world and our hearts expanded. What a gift these relationships of faith have been!

All during this time, my husband and I have been a writing team--writing books with expert resource people (as their co-authors) on a variety of topics (from medical ethics to stories of gang kids), then writing a whole series of historical fiction about great Christian heroes--40 titles in all!--called the Trailblazer books (and a series of "Hero Tales," five volumes in all). Now we are each writing adult fiction--the Yada Yada Prayer Group series for me, which was inspired by my real-life Bible study sisters, a multi-cultural group of feisty women going on 12 years now that God has used to turn my life upside down, or rather, rightside up! (I have to admit, sometimes my real world and my fictional world get a bit mixed up!)

I've been married for 40-plus years to the same wonderful man, we are truly partners in life. We raised two kids plus a Cambodian foster daughter, and together they've given us eight beautiful grandchildren! As one of my girlfriends and I agree: The best stress-busters in the world are pets, gardening, and grandkids!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is "Women's Fiction" with an edge. Gotta read it!, November 29, 2004

By 

Peggy Blann Phifer "Peg" (Las Vegas, NV USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down (Yada Yada Prayer Group, Book 2) (Paperback)

Jodi, Nony, Hoshi, Adele, Florida and the rest are back. This time they deal with some pretty serious issues. Denny, Jodi's husband, is accused by MaDear, Adele's mother, of lynching her baby brother; Nony takes off to Africa when her mother has a stroke; Florida, now with custody of her young daughter, has to deal with Carla's hostility - she wants to go back to her foster parents, and Hoshi has to tell her Shinto parents that she is a Christian.
 
The incident between Denny and MaDear brings a whole new set of circumstances to the multi-racial group as Adele separates herself from her praying sisters. Old hurts and prejudices come to the surface, and the entire group learns a new way of praying.
 
Jodi's healing after her accident that killed a young boy, is a long, slow process. Not just physically, but mentally, spiritually and emotionally as well. An ugly confrontation at the school where she teaches third grade force her to take a whole new look at forgiveness. Is she really responsible for the sins of others? How do you pray that way?
 
And what about that drug-crazed woman who forced her way into Jodi's home during a Yada Yada prayer meeting and robbed them at knife-point. A knife that actually drew blood? The long-reaching consequences of that terrifying day permanently affect the lives of all who were there.
 
I found this second book from Neta Jackson to be quite a reading experience. All these women, who met for the first time at a women's rally in Chicago, come from vastly diverse social and cultural backgrounds. Their bonds grow stronger through each experience as a group, and individually. They meet in each other's homes for prayer; they take turns visiting each other's churches, learning even more about themselves and their sisters. I particularly enjoyed the visit to Ruth's church. Ruth, a Messianic Jew, gives some great descriptions and deep insight into the blending of the old and the new.
 
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down - on their knees. On a book-rating scale, this gets 5-Stars. On a scale of 1 to 10 - this is definitely a 10. I can't recommend it highly enough. But, I also suggest, if you haven't already done so, to read the first Yada Yada Prayer Group book first. There are a few things in this second book that might not make a lot of sense without the background of the first.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sequel that surpasses THE YADA YADA PRAYER GROUP, September 3, 2004

By 

FaithfulReader.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down (Yada Yada Prayer Group, Book 2) (Paperback)

THE YADA YADA PRAYER GROUP, Jackson's debut solo novel, garnered glowing reviews from myself and countless others when it came out last year. Jackson's voice was so fresh and her concerns were relevant covering issues that often are not addressed. While the first Yada Yada book could easily have stood by itself, there was plenty of material in it for at least one sequel, and maybe more.

I opened THE YADA YADA PRAYER GROUP GETS DOWN eagerly since I had enjoyed the first book so thoroughly and wanted to see what Jackson would explore here. Sure I had some trepidations about this second novel since I am all too familiar with the sophomore slump that many authors experience. Looking at the cover I saw the new shot of dancing feet that was much like the delightful line of feet in brightly colored socks on the cover of the first book. This screamed to me that the books were being packaged together. I then had concerns that Jodi Baxter, the protagonist of this "package," would therefore wind up as a packaged person, whose quirks and flaws would become frozen in time.

I should have trusted more in Jackson's God-given talent and inspiration, because she has delivered a second novel that builds on the first and, in some ways, surpasses it.

As it opens, Jodi and her family are in the midst of a steamy city summer. Their home, or "two-flat," in downtown Chicago is about as far from the Gold Coast as you can get, and unlike many characters in Christian fiction who seem to be effortlessly upper-middle-class, the teaching couple struggles for money (Denny still doesn't know whether or not his contract for the upcoming year will come through) and participates actively in their local culture.

The members of Yada Yada, as fans will know, are an eclectic bunch both ethnically and sociologically, including an elegant South African faculty wife, a very young ex-con baker, a middle-aged Messianic Jewish bubbe, and a permanently indignant African-American salon owner. It's the latter's aging mother whose troubled past provokes a rift in the prayer group, and it is this rift that forces Jody and Denny to confront their present-day beliefs.

Those beliefs affect their daughter, their son, and Jodi's quiet Iowa parents, as well as the Yada Yada members, their families, and an unwelcome new acquaintance, Becky Wallace. But what makes this book work is not necessarily this brand-new action, but the interactions of Jodi and her sisters in Christ as they get to know one another for better and for worse. Jodi is not a perfectly cheerful cardboard Christian --- she doesn't always cook with love, she holds grudges, and she argues with her husband. Instead, she's a struggling, contemporary woman of faith whose life reflects her most cherished beliefs. I closed this book wondering how Jackson will further explore this group in future books.

--- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yadda Yadda Praise God!, May 9, 2005

By 

Kathy Hughes (Oskaloosa, Iowa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Down (Yada Yada Prayer Group, Book 2) (Paperback)

I just finished all 3 books. I loved them!!! I feel the first was the best, but the second and third book get into each of the sisters life. I felt like I was a member of the group in all 3 books. Every one needs to read these. Easy reading that you can't put down!