Joni Eareckson Tada

Joni Eareckson Tada (born October 15, 1949) is the founder and CEO of Joni and Friends International Disability Center, a global ministry to people affected by disability. A 1967 diving accident at age 17 left her a quadriplegic, and her subsequent journey through depression, faith, and vocation became the subject of her bestselling 1976 autobiography Joni and the 1979 motion picture of the same name.

For nearly five decades Tada has spoken and written from a wheelchair about suffering, sovereignty, healing, and the dignity of disabled persons in the body of Christ. Joni and Friends provides wheelchairs to people in the developing world, trains churches in disability ministry, and runs Family Retreats for families affected by disability—and her writing has shaped how the evangelical world thinks about lament, providence, and embodiment.