Release date: June 10, 2024
Photo from Joni and friends’ Instagram Joni Eackson Tada says “Disability is not a curse”: Everyone bears the “image” of God From a Movie Guide® contributor
Joni Airckson Tada founded Joni and Friends because she believed the devil was lying to people and trying to make them think the lives of people with disabilities don’t matter.
“Kirk, I think the devil sees disability as his last resort… He resists the goodness of God,” she told actor Kirk Cameron’s show The Takeaways. “He uses disability as an attack on the goodness of God, and he’s being spiteful and saying, ‘Look, how can God call himself good if he allows this child to be born with a birth defect? God, you can’t call yourself good.'”
“That’s what we want to change,” Airkson Tada said. “That mindset. And that’s the point behind all of our program services. We have to give not just physical support, but spiritual hope in the Bible and the gospel of Jesus.”
Airkson Tada, a disabled person herself, runs an organization called Joni and Friends that helps people with disabilities around the world, making them feel loved, cared for and valued.
Movieguide® recently reported on how the organization rescued people stranded in Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine has left countless people stranded and in desperate need of help to evacuate, with people with disabilities being some of the most vulnerable.
A faith-based ministry called Joni and Friends has stepped up to build bridges for many of Ukraine’s 2.7 million people with disabilities who might otherwise be left behind. Founded by Christian author, speaker and radio host Joni Eackson Tada, Joni and Friends has helped 250 people cross into Poland since the war began and plans to escort many more to safety around the world as conditions permit.
According to CBN News, Joni and Friends plans to evacuate 50 more disabled people and their caregivers in eastern Ukraine on Friday, March 25, as planned by their country coordinator, Galina.
“There are so many people suffering across the country and the world,” she says, “many more than me. I want to give them the same good news that changed my life. That’s why I started Joni & Friends. I’m just one woman. I can’t do it alone.”
So she has lots of friends across the U.S. and around the world who help her run Joni and Friends programs.
They are “sharing the gospel of Jesus with millions of people with disabilities. Like I said, their circumstances are much more changed than mine. So this whole thing started with me wanting to share that blessing. And I’m here to tell you, this is real.”
“In 1989, I was in the Philippines. It was monsoon season. I was speaking at a pastors’ conference and was waiting outside a stadium under an umbrella. I looked across the street and saw a woman limping along the muddy road. She limped to the back door of a restaurant with her paralyzed leg, folded her leg, and sat silently by the door until someone opened it and handed her a bag of food.”
On the way back to the United States, Airkson Tada prayed to make a difference in the woman’s life.
“I said, ‘Lord Jesus, if you would use my life to change that woman’s life, I would give anything. I would do anything.’ I had never come into contact with people with such disabilities, such poverty. So I went home and said, ‘My team, we have to change the lives of these people that I saw in the Philippines, because there are millions of them all over the world.’ And, of course, I have traveled to 60 countries and have seen countless scenes of people with disabilities living like homeless people.”
“They live under bridges and along rivers. They’re doing the best they can,” she explained. “They’re relegated to back bedrooms.”
She saw how parents, especially in Southeast Asia, felt ashamed to have a child with a disability.
“There’s a lot of social stigma attached to disability. So when we deliver wheelchairs around the world – and we’ve delivered hundreds of thousands of wheelchairs and Bibles – it’s not just about delivering wheelchairs. It’s about changing the culture around disability, helping people understand that disability is not a curse from the local shaman or medicine man or evil spirit, but that we are all in some way made in the image of God, the great Creator.”
“We are the image of the Lord Jesus, and we want to do that with every wheelchair we deliver,” she said, “and with every retreat we host for families affected by disabilities here in the United States and in developing countries around the world.”
Joni and Friends recently provided a wheelchair to Prence, a 17-year-old Filipino.
“Prince’s first time in a wheelchair. 🦽 ❤️,” Johnny and friends shared on Instagram.
“All her life, Plencis has been confined to lying on the floor or couch due to severe scoliosis and cerebral palsy. Through our Joni and Friends Wheels for the World program, Plencis now has a custom-fit Cub wheelchair that allows her to experience the world around her at a 90-degree angle!” the post read.
Joni and friends recently celebrated the opening of Joni’s House, an international disability center in Opovo, Serbia. The organization hopes that the center will help many Serbians and further promote activism for people with disabilities in the country.
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