Something Of Value Newsletter Fall 2022

Dear Friends and PAHS Family,

As temperatures begin to cool up north, extra heavy rainfalls are causing trouble in Honduras. Although lots of rain regularly falls in this beautiful tropical country, the loss of too many large trees to recent development activities on our mountain, added to the extra rainfall from passing tropical storms and hurricanes have sent torrents of water to places it shouldn’t be. A torrential river moving huge rocks overflowed, uncovering, and smashing the PVC pipes that bring our water supply to the campus; this has happened five times in the last six weeks.

The unusual rainfall led to widespread flooding all over. Adding to this upheaval, an earthquake of 5.1 magnitude shook up the Sula Valley recently. These seem to be signs of the times reminding us that Jesus is coming back soon! We praise God we have a reserve water tank for our kitchen and childcare areas and that here on our campus we have all remained safe. The lack of water in the rest of our campus faucets, at times, has reminded us of our need for an updated water system not so vulnerable to the whims of nature.

Monse and Isaias

As we deal with these waters rushing around us, our hearts break especially for the tragedy of one humble mountain family whose malnourished child is in our rehabilitation program; sweet little Monse’s mother drowned on Mother’s Day trying to cross the Rio Grande illegally into the USA. Grandmother Maria tearfully told us the story, emphasizing that she had not wanted her daughter to go on that treacherous journey, “I told her that I raised her and her siblings making just a little money cleaning houses and eating very simply with beans and rice. I told her she could do that too! But she wouldn’t listen. Her children’s father had left, and she was worried about feeding them, and about my health too. She thought she could make money to help me and herself. I didn’t want her to go… Oh, how I wish she would have listened to me! How am I going to raise her two little girls with my legs in this condition?” she asked, pointing at painful varicose veins. Monse’s big sister, 4-year-old Leticia, looked on stoically as her Grandmother wept.

Sixty years ago, as our campus was taking shape, a visitor reminded us that each person who walks the two-blocks from the road toward the clinic is accompanied by a guardian angel hoping they will feel the love of God and hear words that will give them hope on their pathway to Eternity. For decades now, this has been our prayer: May each person who comes feel the love of Jesus shining from the hearts of our staff. The task humbles us as God has placed us strategically where many hurting people can come for support in times of crisis. Grandmother Maria and her two little girls’ tragic situation reinforces the need to redouble efforts to provide this generation of young people with hope … hope that there is a way to a brighter future right here in this country without leaving home, exposing themselves to grave dangers on a journey north; a journey that ends tragically for too many, leaving thousands of children without parents and robbing Honduras of many of its best and brightest minds. 

It’s a joy to watch lethargic malnourished children transform into happy healthy little ones! Over the last year we have come to love sweet Isaias. For 15 months now Isaias has been giving lessons in kindness and inclusivity. This sweet boy had debilitating diarrhea for 2 years before he came to us with his hemoglobin dangerously low. All the money the family could scrape together had been used taking him to one doctor after another and for purchasing the formula and medicine they prescribed.Nothing had helped his diarrhea. His increasing malnutrition was overlooked until a local clinic sent the family to us.

From his first day, even though Isaias was weak and thin, he exhibited kindness and was uttering words that seemed too mature from a tiny boy. And even though he was “the new kid” he still included others; when asked if he wanted to eat, he chirped: “She does too”, pointing at the child sitting next to him. Often, he seeks out the sad or lonely, and if one starts to cry he is the first to reach them with a comforting gesture.

  Isaias’ eyes sparkle with joy when talking to us, and they shine as he asks questions. His thoughtfulness is endearing. He sports a quick smile and now has enough energy to run around with a little posse of friends seeking out new adventures on the playground or in the ward. Both his uncle and mother come regularly to visit.

Thank you for providing for Isaias and his friends as they gain strength and vigor to return home, where their parents are preparing to receive them. Our staff teach parents, among other things, how to prepare nourishing meals from the foods available to them.

All of us are grateful to have the wonderful partnership of your kind hearts which makes us able to help families who reach out for support. We wish you could hear children and staff as they lift you up before God! It is a blessed and joyful experience to hear their gratitude expressed in prayers. And we now pass it along to you.

With Love,

Please donate to help more children like Monse and Isaias today!

50th Anniversary of our Children’s Nutritional Rehabilitation Center

Dr Youngberg and His Wife Verlene in Front of the Nutritional Hospital in the 60’s

On this day, February 3rd, fifty years ago, Dr. Stephen Youngberg and his wife, Verlene Youngberg, RN opened their Clinic up to three severely malnourished children in critical condition, to give them special care. On that day February 3, 1965 in an old military tent serving as the first facility the Nutritional Rehabilitation Hospital was brought into existence. Of those three critically ill children only one survived the crisis produced by their lack of nourishing food. Sadly help arrived too late for two of the children who died in the first day of treatment. Too weak to continue their fight, the loss of their lives was a grim reminder of the importance of good food and the urgency of working on the prevention of the deadly illness produced by hunger. Fifty years have passed since that first Admission Day in 1965, and thousands of lives being stalked by hunger have been saved from a sure death.Today, February 3, 2015 our Nutritional Rehabilitation Center has 15 little children in various stages of recovery from malnutrition – children who have been given a second chance in life – whose joy and smiles foretell a bright and promising future for the country of Honduras. As we look back at our first 50 years of serving children, and as we stop to count the multitude of blessings we have received in transforming many lives, we appreciate the fact that this has been a team effort between Pan American Health Service, the Providence of our Divine Creator, and the support and trust of thousands of people who donate for our mission. Today, with joy and thanksgiving we celebrate an important milestone in our history, the 50th Anniversary of the Children’s Nutritional Rehabilitation Center. Thank you for being part of our success!

I Have No Food For My Children

In the Bible, Jesus asks: “ Which of you knowing your children are hungry and asking for bread would give them a stone instead?” He goes on to point out that if people who are imperfect know how to give good things to their children, then imagine how much more our Heavenly Father can give to those who ask Him. This is the only hope that the little Muñoz siblings have as the conditions in which they have been living are far from what would be considered appropriate.

Six of the seven children in this family were admitted to the Nutritional Rehabilitation Hospital. Maryuri and Xiomara, the two youngest ones were admitted on Friday with a diagnosis of Third Degree Malnutrition. Doctor Maldonado had to count their teeth in order to determine which one was the oldest sister. Later the family returned to the Nutrition Hospital with the four older children who were also admitted for treatment of their malnutrition. Their parents were accompanied by the pastor from their community church in Yojoa, 50 kilometers from Peña Blanca. This good man had provided the desperately poor family with a humble amount of food and a place to stay, and in spite of the charity of the pastor, the situation for the family remained disheartening: an unemployed father, a mother caring for a newborn, without food or a roof of their own.

All these circumstances have reduced these parents to a painful existence of watching powerlessly as their children grow weak and ill as a result of the scarcity. Mahatma Gandhi once said: “There are people in this world who are so hungry that God can only appear to them as a loaf of bread”.  Indeed this seems to be the situation for this particular family. In spite of the extreme poverty from where these siblings have come, it is admirable to witness the protective instinct these little ones have for each other. In their short stay, we have noted that Maria, 9, the oldest sister, automatically takes charge of the two youngest ones. It is evident that she has been the right-hand helper of her mother, and one can imagine what she has endured in her short life. Shortly after her arrival Maria picked up both little sisters, one in each arm, and did not want to put them down. One of our Staff Nannies came close and said to her: “We will take care of them now. You can go play”.PLAY? That was not a word in Maria’s vocabulary... but now it is. There are so many new things to be experienced! Like the flavor of a warm bite of food, eating three meals a day, the feel of a new pencil between her fingers, and the ability to doodle on a piece of paper -- up until now she has never been to school -- the feel of a warm blanket on her skin on these cold and rainy nights. We are conscious of the fact that for these parents it has not been easy to leave their six small children with us.

They have done so with a new faith in the God they are just getting acquainted with; a God who has now provided them with a new home, health care, and adequate living facilities for their children.

“To him who believes all things are possible”

Suyapa and Ingrid

As we move farther into the beautiful mountains of Santa Barbara, (located in Northwestern Honduras) I can’t help but admire the natural beauty of this place; beautiful pine forests, refreshing streams, the impetuous Ulua River and extensive hilltops that merge to form a magnificent landscape.

Without a doubt this is one of the most pleasant journeys I have taken, excluding the atrocious state of the “road” we are traveling on which has been washed out by the rain in which diches and uneven surfaces are the predominant, a fact that has our driver making a thousand maneuvers just to stay on course.

Any lover of nature and photography would be ecstatic to have this experience, however, my thoughts go beyond the natural composition, since our mission is to locate Ingrid, a girl who is suffering one of the worst cases of malnutrition I have ever seen in my life, Grade III Marasmus. At nine years of age, this deplorable illness has had its way with her, and as if this was not enough she also suffers from a mental health problem that limits her ability to live a normal childhood.

Her twin brother did not have the same fate, and here in front of us can be seen the contrast between a child who is well and the ravages that malnutrition can make in a young life. This is the reason we are here… if they cannot come to us, we will go to them. The famous saying with my own modification goes: “If the mountain cannot come to PAHS, then we will go to the mountains”.The extreme poverty that sails the most remote communities of Honduras does not permit its poorest inhabitants to seek the help they need; to go