How Joni Eareckson Tada Is Giving People Hope in 2025

Published: January 3, 2025

How Joni Eareckson Tada Is Giving People Hope in 2025

By Movieguide® Contributor

Joni Eareckson Tada explained how her nonprofit is giving disabled people hope this upcoming year and why she believes God will use her to transform the world.

“We’ve got so much to celebrate and it all centers around our ministry theme for the start of 2025: Isaiah 43:19, where God says, ‘See, I’m doing a new thing!’ And then He adds, ‘Now, it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland,’” Eareckson Tada said.

“You know, disability can feel like a wilderness, a wasteland of one awful hardship after another. But this year, Joni and Friends is doing new things,” she continued. “We are making a way through those hardships and blazing fresh, hope-filled paths into that wilderness of suffering. We are bringing Gospel joy and practical help to weary, worn out families around the world and we just can’t wait to get started.”

Eareckson Tada is no stranger to the way the Lord can do amazing things when it seems like there is no hope. She became paralyzed at 17, and though the disability seemed like it would ruin her life, it ended up giving her something she could never have imagined.

Though she felt hopeless after the event occurred, Eareckson Tada’s biggest curse has become a blessing as she has devoted her life to serving underprivileged people with disabilities, while her story has inspired countless people to trust the Lord through hardship.

“Salvation in Jesus Christ is the miraculous, life-altering message that Joni and Friends is taking into the wastelands of suffering,” Eareckson Tada said in her New Year’s statement. “People need not feel enslaved by their sin, nor by a very hard disability. God has come to rescue us from misery and give us hope through His redemption. Now, that’s great news for the world’s disabled.”

“And at Joni and Friends, there are lots of new things ahead,” she continued. “Like brand new Joni’s House programs around the world and new countries that will be blessed through Wheels for the World, and many more Retreats and Getaways taking place far and wide in the U.S. and in developing nations. In every program, we’ll be sharing the ‘new thing’ that is fresh, new life that happens when a family really struggles with disability and when they come to Jesus Christ.”

Eareckson Tada shared a New Year reminder for all her followers.

“The New Year is uncharted territory, but don’t let that overwhelm you,” she posted. “Your sovereign God, who rules over every circumstance, will be with you through it all—no matter what this year has in store!”