Students and community members gathered for an hour-long traditional African worship service last wednesday at 7 p.m.

It was a time of devotion and praise filled with African praise songs and contemporary worship songs. Although the service started out fairly mellow, as the night went on, it grew louder and more enthusiastic.

“Africans are very expressive people because everyone is free to express themselves. People are actually genuine and this is how they express themselves for the Lord,” said Jonathan Eigege.

Eigege helped put together the service and is on the African Students Association staff.

The room’s atmosphere was exuberant as singing filled the space. The songs were diverse and energetic. There were songs from Nigeria, and versions of more traditional songs, such as “Lord I Lift Your Name On High,” with a Jamaican flare. Most of the songs were all about giving praise to God and worshiping Him as king.

“We tried to mix it up, since we are trying to bring about cultural awareness. We did not want people to think that we only sing African songs; we also sing songs like ‘Hosanna,’” said Eigege.

The African Students Association put on the service. They are a relatively new organization that got started a year ago this April. They have been working on putting this event on for the past two months and hope to be able to put on a few more chapels. The African Students Association put on the worship service to allow people to experience the African culture through worshiping our Lord.

“We tried to bring cultural awareness of our worship style back home,” said Eigege.

The African Students Association wanted to bring two groups of people together to worship and bring a taste of home to Calvin College through this time of praise and devotion.