COMMUNITY: NOT JUST FOR UNDERGRADSBY J EFF G I LBERT ’ 87 Taiwo Bilesanmi’s undergrad years at Michigan State University showed him the power of living in Christian community. When Bilesanmi, PharmD ’24 was 17, his parents moved their five children from Nigeria to Detroit to give them a chance at a better education. The day Bilesanmi left for college he took his father’s Muslim religion with him. But some freshman-year friendships changed Bilesanmi's life forever. The community he didn't anticipate became the conduit of grace the Lord used to draw Bilesanmi to Himself. After leaving his Muslim household when he started his undergraduate education at Michigan State University, Bilesanmi quickly learned the power of living in Christian community. His college friends kept asking him to join them at a Baptist church about an hour away in Kalamazoo. They rode a free shuttle bus to church and convinced him he had nothing to lose. Eventually he went. Then he went again and again. And near the end of his freshman year, he put his faith in Jesus. Those formative years set Bilesanmi on a path to Cedarville University and a larger, more diverse, and vibrant student culture only God could have foreseen. When Bilesanmi visited pharmacy schools, he wondered if he would find a group of grad-school friends like he had as an undergrad at MSU. They went to church together, ate out together, and studied together. How could college life be that good again? Then he visited Cedarville. Cedarville Magazine | 21
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