Goshen College hosted a bilingual chapel entitled “Servicio de Adoración” on Wednesday. This chapel, meant to resemble a Spanish worship service, included worship songs sung entirely in Spanish and a message from Cristian Alemán, the outreach coordinator and bilingual music director at College Mennonite Church. 

The chapel opened with a song, followed by a welcome from Natalie Pineda Vasquez, a senior music major. Pineda Vasquez shared her passion for the event and invited all present to “praise” and participate, no matter their reason for attending.

The idea for the chapel originated with Pineda Vasquez last school year. “It started out as a question I had … about why there aren’t Spanish chapels or chapels that resemble the Hispanic church when we are a Hispanic-serving institution,” she said. 

Pineda Vasquez, along with Alemán and Jen Shenk, campus pastor, coordinated and hosted the inaugural “Servicio de Adoración” last spring in the union building, but Pineda Vasquez stated that the event was not very well attended. She hoped that redoing the event as a chapel would be an opportunity to reach a wider audience. 

Pineda Vasquez, with guidance from Shenk, planned the entire event, intentionally selecting the songs, the speaker, the scripture passage and the content of the message. 

Shenk suggested Alemán as the speaker because of his work with the Hispanic population through the church. “They have a Spanish service and they work directly with immigrants,” Shenk said. “So it just seemed like a natural connection.”

For the message, Pineda Vasquez chose to focus on the story from John 4 of Jesus and the Samaritan woman because of the way she believed it could be related to current events. 

“I needed a message that … is gonna be real and resonate with the intended audience,” she said. “It’s sort of inspiring to see Jesus combat the stereotypes that were made in those times, and I think we should challenge ourselves to challenge the stereotypes that are going on today.”

When Alemán took the stage at chapel, he opened with a line that directly addressed the current events Pineda Vasquez also referenced. “We are living in difficult times in our world,” he said. “I want to give you some good news: we matter.” 

Alemán went on to speak about his own struggles with identity and connected it to the story of the Samaritan woman to address belonging, identity and celebrating difference. 

Alemán believed that these were important themes to highlight in an event that focused on celebrating a minority culture and its practices. 

“Being that we’re on a college campus that has so much diversity, it’s important that we do not try to erase that,” he said. “I think it’s important to have that diversity in front of us because it gives us an opportunity to understand someone is not like me … and it’s okay.”

The service and its message resonated with many students. Mairin Mendoza, a senior theater major, described the powerful impact the service had on her. 

“What Natalie was saying about not feeling connected with religion at GC … was something that I also connected with but didn’t realize until actually having a service that was done in Spanish for Hispanics,” she said. “It just feels really good to be included for once.”

Shenk expressed her hope that the chapel had a similar impact on other students. “We want to spread a message of welcome, belonging, gratitude and acceptance for our Hispanic students, especially now where there are voices that try to say otherwise.”

Pineda Vasquez stated that she had intended to create a chapel that “felt more like home” to Hispanic students. She also hoped that the service would ultimately convey that “There will be a community somewhere that will rally with you and will join you in this, and we’re not alone in everything that we’re feeling.”