Spiritual Heritage speaker: Joni Eareckson Tada
Joni (pronounced "Johnny") Eareckson Tada has passionate fans and friends on this island - that much is evident to anyone who has seen the devoted way in which they have canvassed the island to spread word on Tada's visit to Nantucket, where she will speak on her experiences in spreading a Christian ministry to the disability community through her organization, the Joni and Friends International Disability Center. The organization provides its followers with a daily, 5-minute radio broadcast, 19 family retreats per year, a wheelchair donation program called Wheels for the World and training and resources for allies who are also ministering to the disabled community.

Joni Eareckson Tada

"Disability usually is something that rips a family apart, presses you and pushes you over the edge into despair - whether it's a family with elderly grandparents with Alzheimer's, or a baby born with spina bifida. But we at the ministry try to ascribe the same positive perspective of a disability as was ascribed to me when I was injured," Tada said. "In Romans 8:28, the Bible says, 'All things fit together in a pattern of good to them who love God.'We try to encourage people to see that there are more important things in life than walking. And that is the transformation of the heart, mind and soul through the fruits of the spirit."

Tada has also worked to influence the church on disability-related issues and, in 2005, was appointed to the Disability Advisory Committee of the U.S. State Department.

Tada became a quadriplegic after a diving accident in 1967. She was 17 years old.

"I dove in shallow water, broke my neck and landed in the hospital, suicidally despairing," Tada said. "I'm glad it happened then and not now, when there are Jack Kevorkian doctors who think you're better off dead."

Tada's faith played a large role in her rehabilitation. "My church made a huge difference in my family's life as they demonstrated the love of God in practical ways," said Tada, who published an account of her experiences in her autobiography, "Joni." "They helped me to find meaning in my hardship."

In addition to speaking worldwide on issues of faith and medicine, Tada has written over 35 books and has a quiver full of awards from Christian organizations, including, in 2003, the Gold Medallion Lifetime Achievement Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.

"We all have handicaps, they just manifest in different shapes and sizes, things we wish we could change and can't," said Tada, who added that she cried when she first arrived on Nantucket, because it brought back childhood memories of camping in the sand dunes along the Delaware shore. "I will be speaking in the hopes that people who feel crippled by anxiety, or paralyzed by doubt and discouragement, can be uplifted. Rather than feel that it's a dead end street with no hope, I want to help people find the hope that I found."

When: Thu., June 21, 7 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. Where: NHS Mary P. Walker

Memorial Auditorium, 10 Surfside Rd. Cost: Free