While the world still sits and waits for the COVID-19 pandemic to end, the Zion Hill Christian Fellowship Church in New Iberia is doing its part for the community.

The order to stay at home and stay safe has not stopped the church’s normal services, conducted online to obey safe-distancing guidelines and those preventing groups of more than 10 coming together, and church members are still being obedient to the word of God, according to Albert Hill, the outreach pastor at Zion Hill.

“The word of God said we fear and we have faith as a grain of a mustard seed to the mountain,” Hill said. “The mountain shall be removed, too.”

Located on Main Street, the church has been giving back to the community since being established in 2002 following Hurricane Lily.

Though the congregation and everyone in the community is continuing to struggle during COVID-19, Hill said church members are still trusting God at His word, and they want to enlighten and encourage people with His words.

“Sometimes you can’t trust man, but you can trust God, at his word,” Hill said.

Through social media platforms, which include Facebook live, Instagram, the Zion Hill Christian Fellowship Church are continuing live services for their community.

The mission statement for the church quotes Timothy II, chapter 1, verse 7, which says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

These virtual worships are just a small way they can give back while still maintaining a safe distance.

Though it’s impersonal and social distancing is recommended, the church is using Facebook and Instagram to continue to teach.

But church leaders are using other techniques as well. On Sundays, members meet in their cars and Bishop Darren Sophus Sr. leads services in the parking lot.

“I stand a distance away and do what we would do as if we were in a church, but in their cars,” he said.

Aside from car services, Sophus and the church are doing whatever they can to serve their communities.

For instance, on Saturday, through donations from others to the church, the congregation will give away free meals to anyone who drives up during the meal giveaway, until the meals run out. (See story this page.) It’s just a small part of what the church does for New Iberia.

“That’s the purpose of the church,” Sophus said. “That’s what Jesus talked about in Matthew 25, about feeding those he would have fed.”

Matthew 25: 35-40 reads “‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”

Sophus said the church wants to keep in mind the lesson of the Good Samaritan and give assistance in troubled times to those in need.

“I know sometimes it may put us in some type of peril, but we understand the love of God supersedes that and try at least to give back,” he said.