Jessica Wilbanks

When I Spoke in Tongues Jessica Wilbanks

Growing up in poverty in the rural backwoods of southern Maryland, Jessica Wilbanks and her family built their lives around the Pentecostal church. At sixteen, driven by a desire to discover the world, Jessica walked away from the church, driving a wedge between her and her deeply religious family. Ten years after leaving home, struggling with guilt and shame, Jessica began a quest to recover her faith. It led her to West Africa, where she explored the Yor??b?ín roots of the Pentecostal religion and finally began the difficult work of forgiving herself for leaving the church and her family to find her own path. When I Spoke in Tongues is a story of the painful and complicated process of losing one?ÇÖs faith and moving across class divides. And in the end, it?ÇÖs a story of how a family splintered by dogmatic faith can eventually be knit together again through love.