The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

RELIANCE on the church has grown “exponentially” amid the country’s COVID-19 outbreak, a reality that has created challenges across the board, according to Bahamas Christian Council President Bishop Delton Fernander.

Chief among the challenges is that high unemployment has had a trickle down effect, meaning less people are able to give resources to the church to assist with outreach to those most in need.

“Forty percent of the society is unemployed,” the BCC president told The Tribune yesterday. “You can only imagine that that’s 40 precent of congregations that are unemployed and churches do their very best to help their own.

“We’re really challenged with everything. We are a part of society so if 40 percent are unemployed, churches are not the building, so there are 40 percent of people who cannot help with outreach, who cannot give the finances.

“We run the majority of the schools. We run the majority of the homes. We run the majority of the at-risk programmes and if we can’t fund them they aren’t running at full potential.

“Churches have been running the homes, paying the light bills, feeding people, those are free things that we do.

“Schools haven’t opened since the early part of this year and they fund the overall operation and so its a trickle down effect.

“One day we are going to sit down and talk about the real impact of the church on the Bahamian economy because I think sometimes we miss the fact that the church is an extension of social services and we do our part to help the unfortunate of society.”

Regarding churches, Bishop Fernander said the BCC is implementing the same previous protocols approved by the Ministry of Health that were in place during the first wave of COVID-19.

“We were very very thankful that we saw on the pie chart that there was zero transmission from churches and we want to keep it the way. So I had a wonderful conversation with our leaders about continuing to follow protocols even the more although we’re starting the process of opening.

“So as far as New Providence is concerned we believe with that kind of numbering and we’re following the data, that in short order the churches in New Providence as soon as the numbers remain in this category I believe for the next week we could see the return of the 30 percent occupancy.”

He maintained that churches are an essential service with great value to society.

“While everybody was home we had to deal with the dead. We had to deal with the grieving. We had to deal with the sick. We didn’t have any personal protective equipment. We didn’t have any big fancy equipment. All we had was a mask and our faith but we go on the road even when the orders didn’t see a need for us.

“But there was a coming around. They quickly realised that if we are going to feed the nation the churches are the places where these people meet we already know who in our communities are in need of help and they already come to us so i think it took this pandemic for people to really understand.

“…Between Hurricane Dorian and now the pandemic the church has proven to be a stable sector of society that when governments come and go the church remains,” Bishop Fernander said.

He spoke after new emergency orders were released, which allow churches in New Providence to conduct services via live stream between 7am and 1pm provided no more than 10 people participate, effective next Monday.

Churches in certain Family Islands, however, are allowed to resume services in accordance with the protocol established by BCC and approved by the Ministry of Health. These islands are Chub Cay, Harbour Island, Long Cay, Long Island, Ragged Island, Rum Cay, San Salvador and Spanish Wells.