Ninety percent of attendees of the West Nigeria Seventh-day Adventist camp meeting in Ibaji, Kogi state, last month were new members of the Adventist faith, according to church reports from Nigeria. The camp meeting involved more than 50 villages joining together to hold the event.

“I was impressed with the sheer energy and enthusiasm,” said Carlyle M. Bayne, pastor and administrator from the church’s West Africa regional headquarters who attended the event. They sang and responded with enthusiasm, he said.

A king of one of the villages who had recently joined the church attended the meeting and 42 of his subjects, the report indicates, were baptized at the camp meeting. 

“We could sense that these new believers were having a wonderful experience with Jesus,” said Bayne.

Membership in the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Africa has almost doubled in the last decade. In Nigeria, membership has grown to such a degree that administrators say there is a need for 42 new churches to be built. Seven primary schools and a health clinic are also needed to serve people in the region.

“This area is ripe for Christianity,” Bayne said.

In 1914, D.C. Babcock established the work of the Adventist Church in Nigeria at the town of Erunmu in Oyo state. Today, there are nearly 200,000 Seventh-day Adventist church members in Nigeria.