by Timothy Rutt
Victor Wright of Altadena was ordained to the ministry Sunday by Association of Fundamental Ministers and Churches in a ceremony at Fuller Theological Seminary.
It was a long road to the ministry for Wright, whom we've written about previously. Wright, who played football for John Muir High School, was rendered quadriplegic after suffering a spinal cord injury 37 years ago. Still, he graduated with his class in 1979, and went on to become one of the first quadriplegics to earn a college degree through a special education program at Los Angeles City College. The two year associate's degree took him ten years to earn. Wright was inducted into the John Muir Alumni Association Hall of Fame in 2007.
After college, Wright met John Dhanaraj, then a Fuller student, and the two co-founded the nonprofit charity Family of Friends International, which provides educational and relief supplies to orphaned children around the world who survived natural disasters but lost their parents in the process.
"This is yet another chapter in the remarkable life of an amazing human being," said David Rutherford, a classmate and member of John Muir High School Alumni Association's Board of Directors. "Rev. Wright has inspired generations of Muir alumni, friends, and teammates through his courage, faith, and unwavering determination to overcome adversity.'
According to Rutherford, "The most poignant moment of the afternoon came at the end of the ceremony, when Gloria Lavelle, a nurse working in the ICU when Victor was admitted to Huntington Memorial, said she told him how unfair she thought it was that a patient next to him being treated for wound sustained during the commission of a crime, checked out in good health, while he might never walk again. She said she would never forget the 15-year-old's response was: 'whatever path God has chosen for me, that's the path I'm willing to take.'"
