RELIGION / JOHN DART : Ministry Wins Free Air Trips to Deliver Wheelchairs to Ghana

AGOURA HILLS â€”  Joni and Friends, an international Christian ministry to the disabled based here, took 120 wheelchairs to Ghana in West Africa in February of 1994, but found they fell far short of the need.

A quick return trip would have strained the budget of the evangelical ministry founded in 1979 by evangelical artist-radio commentator Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic since a diving accident in 1967 who starred in a Billy Graham-produced movie of her life titled “Joni.�

But a longtime aide, Judy Butler, last year saw a newspaper ad about a contest to win free air travel on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which was observing its 75th anniversary. “Let’s give it a try,� Butler said.

This month, the ministry’s Agoura Hills headquarters was notified that the ministry was one of 12 winners out of 12,000 entries, and one of only two U.S. winners.

By June, Tada and two dozen staff members will travel on an all-expense-paid trip to Ghana to deliver 200 wheelchairs to local agencies, including chairs for the country’s Olympic wheelchair team.

The wheelchairs, currently stored in warehouses in Ohio and Iowa, are mostly used, but all are in excellent condition, a spokeswoman said.

Neither KLM officials nor JAF Ministries, as Tada’s nonprofit group is formally known, estimated the value of the free round-trips and shipping costs.

The ministry team will do more than help those who need wheelchairs. A blind specialist will take a Perkins Braille Writer to the School for the Blind in Akropong and a woman on the team who has cerebral palsy will take training materials for groups of the mentally disabled, according to Tada’s application to KLM.

Tada, who has written 20 books for children and adults, has been married for 13 years to Ken Tada, a high school teacher in Burbank. They live in Calabasas.