• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Mosaic MennonitesMosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our History
    • Vision & Mission
    • Staff
    • Boards and Committees
    • Church & Ministry Directory
    • Mennonite Links
  • Media
    • Articles
    • Newsletters
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Bulletin Announcements
  • Resources
    • Conference Documents
    • Missional
    • Intercultural
    • Formational
    • Stewardship
    • Church Safety
    • Praying Scriptures
    • Request a Speaker
    • Pastoral Openings
    • Job Openings
  • Give
    • Leadership Development Matching Gift
  • Events
    • Pentecost
    • Delegate Assembly
    • Faith & Life
    • Youth Event
    • Women’s Gathering
    • Conference Calendar
  • Mosaic Institute
  • Vibrant Mosaic
  • Contact Us
  • English
  • Español (Spanish)

A Ministry of Water, Concrete, Corn and Gratitude: Get to Know Healthy Niños Honduras (Part III)

by Javier Márquez

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of four feature articles on HNH, originally published in Spanish in 2024. All photos by Javier Márquez.

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

In bottom left, a man from the community receiving medical assistance. In the top right, a family that has known the program for many years. In the bottom right, the construction of a concrete floor in a home.

Three of the Conference-Related Ministry Healthy Niños Honduras (HNH)’s key services are represented by water, concrete, and corn. 

The deep level of poverty in the mountains of Honduras creates conditions where people must live in precarious houses, with dirt floors and without clean water. When babies crawl and take their first steps on dirt floors, the bacteria and insects present start a cycle of gastrointestinal illnesses, which make children vulnerable to diseases that threaten their development.

Without a potable water system, families build rainwater storage wells, which are holes in the ground filled with water that they use for bathing, drinking, and washing boots and dishes. Honduras faces diseases like dengue, chikungunya, and Zika, which are transmitted by mosquitoes that breed and dwell in these water wells.

To address these problems, HNH offers to build cement floors, which are donated to families and built by the brigades. Over the years, hundreds of these floors have blessed families and provided safer places for children to grow.

HNH also donates small, simple water filtration systems that protect everyone, especially children, from diseases that can come from consuming contaminated water. 

At the Nutrition Center

Norma Gutiérrez and her daughters at the Nutrition Center. 

HNH maintains a digital record of everyone it has served and offers professional follow-ups on each case. The families of children who are below the healthy nutrition line are invited to go to the Nutrition Center. 

The Nutrition Center is a beautiful place that resembles a small village with colorful houses, a small school, a park, and a kitchen. Surrounded by bean, cassava, soybean, papaya, and plenty of corn fields, families who accept the invitation come here to help their children recover over several months. 

The Nutrition Center becomes a small community where mothers work together to cook tortillas and coffee each morning, clean the center daily, and take care of their babies in a place where there is enough food to eat.

Hundreds of children have been rescued at this center. It is a place where families receive nourishment for their stomachs and their hearts. Parents who have saved their children by admitting them to this center have become community leaders who invite other families to come. Some, like Don Félix, have even ended up working on staff with Healthy Niños. 

Freddy brings avocados from his plot to thank the brigade for helping him build the floor of his house. That day, his daughter Celestin was celebrating her first birthday: “She is the apple of my eyes,” he said.
Mrs. Blanca Isabelle prepares coffee for the brigade. Sadly, her eldest son passed away suddenly a year ago. For her, he will always live on in her memory.

The opinions expressed in articles posted on Mosaic’s website are those of the author and may not reflect the official policy of Mosaic Conference. Mosaic is a large conference, crossing ethnicities, geographies, generations, theologies, and politics. Each person can only speak for themselves; no one can represent “the conference.” May God give us the grace to hear what the Spirit is speaking to us through people with whom we disagree and the humility and courage to love one another even when those disagreements can’t be bridged.

This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)

This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)

Filed Under: Articles, Mosaic News En Español Tagged With: Javier Marquez, Mosaic News en Español

Primary Sidebar

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our History
    • Vision & Mission
    • Staff
    • Boards and Committees
    • Church & Ministry Directory
    • Mennonite Links
  • Media
    • Articles
    • Newsletters
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Bulletin Announcements
  • Resources
    • Conference Documents
    • Missional
    • Intercultural
    • Formational
    • Stewardship
    • Church Safety
    • Praying Scriptures
    • Request a Speaker
    • Pastoral Openings
    • Job Openings
  • Give
    • Leadership Development Matching Gift
  • Events
    • Pentecost
    • Delegate Assembly
    • Faith & Life
    • Youth Event
    • Women’s Gathering
    • Conference Calendar
  • Mosaic Institute
  • Vibrant Mosaic
  • Contact Us

Footer

  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • Delegate Assembly
  • Vision & Mission
  • Our History
  • Formational
  • Intercultural
  • Missional
  • Mosaic Institute
  • Give
  • Stewardship
  • Church Safety
  • Praying Scriptures
  • Articles
  • Bulletin Announcements

Copyright © 2025 Mosaic Mennonite Conference | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use