“There is no food to feed the children,” Dr. España explained.   Today we were scheduled to go to the village of Urraco in the mountains of northern Honduras to pick up fifteen children who we had identified last week as being malnourished.   Then, we were going to go by the clinic in St. Cruz de Mina to see if the nurse had identified any children who needed to come.   Tomorrow we were to go to Montanita to bring three or four more children, identified last week as being in level two or three of malnutrition, the most severe and dangerous levels of malnutrition.   But, “there is no food” we are told,   The government failed to deliver the food as promised, and AIEH has just paid the teachers at the school and has no money.   We cancel our visits to pick up more children.  

Bruce goes along to visit the nutrition center for the first time when there were children there.   None of the kids are wearing shoes.   Their clothes are in dis-repair, missing buttons and torn.   Some of the girls are wearing blue apron-dresses provided by the center.   The children amuse themselves by playing with empty cardborad boxes.   For lunch they improvise, because the foods for the posted menu aren’t available.   They are having rice soup with boiled eggs in it, and tortillas.   The worker at the center has bought the maseca , the flour to make tortillas, from her own funds, out of the 2100 lempiras ($116) that she makes each month.   We eat our lunch alone, outdoors, because we know that the food we had brought is healthier and more nutritious than what the children and their mothers are eating.  

We weigh the children after lunch and one of the kids has lost rather than gained weight.   How can we pack calories into his diet?   There are no vegetables or fruits available at the center right now, other than tomato paste.   They only have manteca , lard, as a fat source, no oil or butter.   The only protein source is beans and a little mundungo , cow intestine, but no meat, chicken, or fish.   The last eggs were eaten for lunch.   There is still plenty of rice, flour and sugar. We tell his mother to melt lard and add it to his beans and rice, and to feed him six or eight times a day.   Put extra sugar on his oatmeal in the morning.   We promise to check on getting fruits and vegetables for tomorrow.  

After we return home,   we sit to eat our supper of meat and tortillas, vegetables and fruit, and we feel the guilt of knowing that the children we are here to serve are going without.   The door bell rings and we are greeted by a family of three women and their seven children, asking for food.   We respond out of our guilt, giving them our leftover tortillas, and a package of beans.  

In the United States, budget cuts can be painful;   people may go without opportunties for education, without access to health care, without adequate housing, without reliable transportation.   In Honduras, budget cuts mean slow death for poor people, especially children.   “And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered,” says Matthew 10:30.   If we believe in a creating God who cares enough to number the hairs on our heads, and if we believe that we as disciples are called to do the work of God in the world, how can we explain what is happening to the children of Urraco and Montanita, Honduras?