The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Rolling - Party Edition with Celebrations and Recipes

From Thanksgiving and Christmas to rolling in the New Year, the Yada Yadas are "decked out" to celebrate the holidays!

Turkey dinners, tree trimming, and decking the halls--it's that time of year again! And I, Jodi Baxter, can't wait to celebrate. My kids are coming home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then all of us Yadas are getting decked out for a big New Year's party.

But God's idea of "decked out" might just change the nature of our party plans. A perplexing encounter with a former student, a crime that literally knocks me off my feet, a hurry-up wedding, and a child who will forever change our family...it's times like these that I really need my prayer sisters.

This holiday season, we Yada Yadas are learning that no one can out-celebrate God. So let's get this party started!

For the Yada Yadas, gettin' caught up in troubles isn't the problem; it's how to get free.

Only weeks ago, we Yadas toughened our prayer knees when one of our own was the victim of a vicious racial attack. Now it seems each household is being thrown into even bigger and badder circumstances. It especially worries me, Jodi Baxter, because I'm a fixer by nature, and the prayer list is getting out of control . . .

Ruth and Ben are caught up in an unplanned pregnancy--in their fifties! Chanda is deluded by the glitter of her lottery dream come true. Florida wants to move her family, hoping to leave trouble behind, but it looks like it may catch up to her anyway. And I'm finding that even good things like prayer group can consume me in no time flat.

If there is an upside, it's that all this trouble is revealing the subtle lies we Yadas believe about God, ourselves, each other, and life. Maybe our best hope is to catch on to what God's doing--and catch on quick!--before the enemy can take any prisoners. That'd be a freedom worth celebrating. And celebrating is what my spiritual sisters and I do best.

The Yada Yadas got tight in the past year, but they're about to learn the real meaning of togetherness.

We'd done it: we'd taken a mismatched, diverse group of women and cobbled together a prayer group that really worked for all of us. Now that spring was here, we were celebrating our one-year anniversary--and a wedding, an early parole, and two baptisms in the lake! Everything was feeling pretty great.

But it's when we're in our comfort zone that we're most likely to let our guard down. Without warning, lots of little things seemed to become big problems. With a white supremacy hate group targeting a local university, our very diversity almost became a liability. It took a vicious attack on Nony's husband to make us see that we had to get tough--and fight back together.

The Yada Yadas thought they had a handle on forgiveness, but it seems God has them on a crash-course to an even deeper level.

After everything the Yada Yadas had been through in the past eight months, I told God I could sure use a little "dull and boring" in the new year! But that was before Leslie "Stu" Stuart moved in upstairs. Ms. Perfect herself and me--Jodi Baxter--living in the same two-flat? A recipe for collision. Then Delores Enriquez's son Jose wanted to throw my Amanda a quinceanera--a coming-out party, Mexican style--and they're only fifteen!

At least Bandana Woman, who held up our Yada Yada Prayer Group at knife-point last fall, was safely locked up in prison . . . or so I thought. We visited her, like the Bible says; even sent her something for Christmas. But then she ends up back in our face. I mean, how far is forgiveness supposed to go?

I guess I should have realized that with eleven Yada Yada sisters as diverse as a bag of Jelly Bellies, life would always be unpredictable. All I know is that the longer we Yada Yada pray together, the more "real" things are getting, not only with each other but with God. Dull and boring? Not a chance.

Sometimes you find hope in the last place you look.

Gabrielle Fairbanks has nearly lost touch with the carefree, spirited young woman she was shen she married her husband sixteen years ago. But when the couple moves to Chicago to accommodate Philip's ambition, Gabby longs for the chance to find real purpose in her own life.

A chance encounter with a homeless woman suddenly opens a dooor she never expected. The women of Manna House Women's Shelter need a Program Director--and she has the right credentials. Gabby's in her element, feeling God's call on her life at last, even though Philip doesn't like the changes he sees in her. But she never anticipated his ultimatum: quit your job at the shelter or risk divorce and losing custody of our sons.

In this moment, Gabby's entire foundation shifts. She must find refuge, as in the song they sing at Sunday worship: "Where do I go when there's no one else to turn to . . . I go to the Rock I know that's able, I go to the Rock."

For everyone who loves the best-selling Yada Yada Prayer Group novels comes a brand new series sprinkled with familiar faces and places from the Yada Yada world. It's the perfect novel to start with--or to meet friends from past Yada stories.

A 2 in 1 collection of Yada Yada Prayer books authored by Neta Jackson.

Gabby knows God is the God of second chances.

But can she give one to the man who betrayed her?

When she was thrown out of the penthouse she shared with her husband and their sons, Gabby didn’t know if she’d ever find a soft place to land. But after seeking refuge at the shelter where she works, extraordinary things happen as she is reintroduced to God.

From the ashes of her marriage comes the House of Hope—a safe haven for homeless moms and their children.

But now those ashes of her destroyed marriage are being stirred again. When her long-gone husband’s life hits rock bottom, he reappears and asks for one more chance. And Gabby faces what feels like an impossible choice. Take him back. Or keep moving forward without him. Toward someone new who hasn’t betrayed her.

Is God redeeming what Gabby thought was gone forever? Or is He leading her down a different path and giving her something—and someone—new?

You can only walk forward when you learn how to lean.

Just months after her husband threw her out of their penthouse and sent their two sons away, Gabrielle Fairbanks is finally getting back on her feet. She has a job she loves at the homeless shelter, an apartment for her and the boys, caring friends, and even a new love interest. Best of all, an unexpected windfall has given her a brand-new dream--a House of Hope for homeless mothers and their children.

Piece by piece, Gabby's new life is coming together--but the old one keeps dragging her back. First her husband Philip hints at a reconciliation...then hits her up for a loan to pay his gambling debts. And when Gabby tells him no, he makes a desperate move that puts them all in harm's way. How can she even think of embarking on a new venture when so much is up in the air?

Gabby is realizing that she needs something far greater than her own strength or even that of her friends. That to move forward, she must first lean on the only One who knows what the future holds.

Sometimes the person you most need is the one least like you.

Kathryn Davies is a bright young woman from a prominent Phoenix family. But after making a leap of faith at a Christian music fest, dropping out of med school, and moving to inner city Chicago, her family all but disowns her.

When Kat discovers SouledOut Community Church, she longs to become a part of the multicultural church family. But her tendency to immediately say whatever she’s thinking steps on the toes of nearly everyone she meets—especially Avis Douglass.

Avis has a strong faith, is the principal of one of Chicago’s highest performing elementary schools, and is a founding member of SouledOut. But the country’s economic downturn has thrown both her and her husband’s jobs in question. And Avis hasn’t heard from her youngest daughter in months—an estrangement that gnaws at her every day. Where is God in this?

Kat’s flamboyant zeal for living a “radical” Christian life is a stark contrast to Avis’s more reserved faith. But in God’s timing, the two women discover they need each other in ways neither of them expected.