“I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.”

The other day we were listening to a pastor on the internet in our home. While there was much more to the sermon one thing he said stood out about the pulpit ministry. He said the pulpit should be much more of a ministry of reminding than innovating. Even if we have been followers of Jesus and readers or students of the Bible for many years we still need to be reminded of the basics.  This pastor went on to say that if we focus too much on wanting to “innovate” we run the risk of reading things into the Scriptures that aren’t really there. I think we could all agree that there are many false gospels being preached in our day because too many are looking for something “innovative” in the Scriptures.

There are times in our lives when a particular passage from the Bible impacts us in different ways. That does not mean there is a “new” meaning that wasn’t there before. God’s Word means what it means and using correct interpretation methods will protect us from finding “new” meanings that were never intended. But the different impact just means that because of current circumstances those particular verses have a different effect in our lives at a particular moment. And for us that is the case with the first two verses of Psalm 121 that are referenced above. When I (Greg) was a new Christian I heard a song on the radio and the chorus was mostly comprised of verses 5-7 of this Psalm. I was so new that I did not know the words in the chorus were Bible verses but they sounded like they might be so I did some checking and discovered Psalm 121. It quickly became a favorite of mine.

The challenges in this new phase of ministry that the Lord has led us to in the last year have been tremendous. During the last quarter of 2018 the idea for this ministry was planted and nurtured. It was cultivated and grown to the point of opening La Casa de Rubén officially on April 26th 2019. The quarter prior to that held its own challenges that were difficult enough. The first quarter following have presented more challenges beyond those we had ever faced before.

A view of Mt. Celaque from the entrance to the house.

All of us and our staff have been seeking a Bible verse that we could claim as the foundational verse for the ministry. We exchanged lots of ideas over the last few months but nothing ever ‘stuck”. I know it sounds bad to say that any of God’s perfect words did not have sticking power with us. Obviously it wasn’t that the other verses were bad or wrong. They just weren’t speaking to us in the present circumstances. Then the Lord drew us to Psalm 121, and these verses stuck. Immediately we all said “Yes!” this is it!

Opening with lifting up our eyes to the mountains fits because the house is located near the foot of Mount Celaque, the largest, and possibly most beautiful mountain in all of  Honduras. This new ministry has been challenging beyond what we expected so we are constantly looking for and needing help. If we’ve learned anything so far it is that we don’t have enough time, talent, funds, etc. to handle this on our own. And by reaching that point then we remember what we should never have to be reminded of, that our help comes from the Lord, the One who made heaven and earth.

And He has helped us time and time again. And we know He will help us many times more because we are constantly lifting up our eyes beyond the mountains to Him, the One who made the mountains.

So what does that have to do with the Team 12:11?

From the Scripture reference Psalm 121:1-2 we have chosen to set aside 12:11 p.m. daily as a time to pray specifically for FHD Missions and La Casa de Rubén. Several of us already have an alarm set on our phones to go off at that time to remind us to stop whatever it is we are doing to pray for this ministry. Will you consider becoming a Team 12:11 member? There is no other commitment required than to pray briefly and daily for this ministry at this hour. If you would like to officially join the team please contact us using the form in this website, our email addresses greghines@fhdhonduras.org or jeanhines@fhdhonduras.org or any other way you already have to reach us and let us know. We will be putting together a very focused and brief message to send to everyone on the team periodically to report on how God is responding to our prayers and what the prayer needs are at any given time. Thank you and God bless!