My friend Victor
This past Saturday morning Tollie and I had breakfast with our friend Victor Aghadi, who was in town to pick up his brother Ike’s personal belongings. Ike is completing his freshman year at Western Illinois University, the same school Victor graduated from last spring.
We met up with Victor at the J.D. Salaris Family Diner, a little homestyle restaurant on Macomb’s west side. We discussed a variety of topics over sausage, bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy and coffee (at least that’s what I ate), but mostly we talked about ministry.
Victor works as a lab technician at a beauty products manufacturer, but his real passion is preaching the Gospel. One of his last acts before leaving WIU to return to the Chicago suburbs was to baptize three of his friends in Jesus’ name. These days, Victor spends his downtime serving the Kingdom of God through Bartlett United Pentecostal Church, teaching Bible studies, participating in a small group, assisting with the congregation’s Sunday School program, and doing other ministry related activities. He’s being groomed for a future as a minister by his pastors, Jack Yonts and Robert Boettcher.
I’ve bragged on Victor in the past, but my purpose in relating this is not to give him another pat on the back, however well-deserved it might be. Rather, I simply found it refreshing to hang around a young man who is living for a higher purpose. Too many people waste their 20s and 30s chasing relationships, education, money and the status symbols they afford. Don’t get me wrong – I believe in getting an education, and I’m not against relationships or making money. But, detached from everything else, these are very empty pursuits that don’t lead to real happiness.
Later in the day I picked up the latest edition of the Forward, a magazine for United Pentecostal Church ministers. Inside was an article by Jarrid Younkin, the academic dean at Christian Life College in Stockton, Calif. Jarrid also happens to be the grandson of my former pastor, Lloyd Younkin. I’ve known Jarrid since he was a kid visiting his grandparents in Greenfield, Ill. Seeing Jarrid’s photo and reading the article he wrote, I was reminded that Victor isn’t the only young person who has chosen to devote his life to a higher purpose.
We hear a lot about young men and women who abandon their faith upon reaching adulthood. I suppose my purpose in writing this is simply to note that there are other young men and women who, like Daniel, are serving God in the middle of an often hostile world. Like Daniel, I believe they are destined to make a difference.
I’m just honored to say that a few of them are my friends.