For his whole life, Zack Mitchell has learned to lean on his faith and hope in trying times.

As President of the Iberia Christian Ministerial Federation and pastor at Word of Hope World Outreach Church, Mitchell is coming together with members of other congregations in the New Iberia area today and relying on one another to help make tomorrow better.

“We’re not absent of opinions, we’re just not,” Mitchell said. “Everyone has an opinion, that’s OK, that’s alright, but you’re looking for truth and a lot of people are looking for a correct response.”

Even in the faith community, Mitchell said, there are a variety of opinions on how to handle recent protests and reactions to the murder of George Floyd.

Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed in Minneapolis on May 25 during an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit bill.

Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down, begging for his life and repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe.”

His death spurred a nationwide protest, calling for freedom from police brutality, and for Mitchell, the way he and his congregation are handling the protest is with their faith in God, using Him to come together.

“We may not have all the answers and there is a great cry in the midst of faith for people to unite, and that is the biggest thing — to unite and come together,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said he thinks people deal with absolutes in four different areas: evil, justice, forgiveness and love.

“I don’t care what your race is, what your nationality is, those things come to bear on us,” he said. “We are strapped down in the storm of Jesus Christ and we are trying to give hope to anybody and everybody that is willing to listen.”

Though there is evil in the world, according to Mitchell, more importantly, who can know every heart? “God,” he said.

“We demand justice in George Floyd, we weep with the families, we comfort the families for justice, but we are hopeful in forgiveness and love,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said his congregation is proposing, as faithful people, for the church to come together, for churches not to be separate entities as they’ve been in the past. The church, according to Mitchell, is the universal church, which is identified by everyone who has confessed Jesus and that He died for people’s sins and He was raised from the dead.

Mitchell said members of the universal church know the world is hurting, but they know what is needed: love, forgiveness and faith.

“Because we are hurting, the world is hurting,” Mitchell said. “We need to provide an answer and that answer is Christ, the anchor in the storm.”

Word of Hope members are out in the community, doing anything they can for residents of the Teche Area who have been affected by recent events that have shaken the country.

“You must lend a hand and try to help,” Mitchell said. “Before we lift a voice and criticize we try to help.”

A native of Weeks Island, Mitchell moved to New Iberia at age 13 and has called the Teche Area home while facing his fair share racial inequity.

It wasn’t until he got into athletics, playing sports with members of the white community, that he learned the true meaning of different races.

Bleeding together, crying together — and ultimately winning and losing together — Mitchell said, created a bond and love with one another.

What eventually came to bear for Mitchell was growing closer with those who are different from him.

Standing up for his white teammates against blacks, and vice versa, Mitchell said, broke down the barriers that he was surrounded by for years before then.

“You started to see in this microcosm that we can get along and then you transposed that into your life, and you started to see that we are all human beings,” Mitchell said. “We all bleed the same, we all have a heart.”

After graduating from Tulane University and having a stronger relationship with Christ, Mitchell soon understood that racism doesn’t come from the color of someone’s skin but rather their heart.

“And that’s where the problem lies,” Mitchell said. “It’s in the heart.”

Though the world is hurting right now and things seem bleak, Mitchell has faith that things will get better:

“When we do have hope, when we come together and we just decide that we are going to change what we can change, we are not trying to impact a whole thing,” Mitchell said. “We are not trying to create a whole movement, we just want to do the best with what we have. And I do have hope.”