Julie Nyhoff de Valladares. Our newsletter this month is about Jairo (pronounced Hi-ro) Gonzalez, a recent microloan recipient. Jairo works for a Honduran non-profit ministry that provides comprehensive spiritual, educational, medical, and nutritional care for many Honduran families. This organization owns a campus in Siguatepeque with an onsite school with about 70 students. The school covers grades 7 through 9, which grades are called collegio in Honduras.
On the ministry’s campus, there is also a small medical clinic staffed with a full-time doctor and a dentist. As part of their health program, the ministry also sends various representatives to some of the schools in Siguatepeque to talk to the students about good health practices and about nutrition. Jairo is one of these representatives.
Jairo visits various schools each week to discuss nutrition with the students and to share the gospel with them. He is a young and dynamic person, and he is very passionate about his work. When he visits a school, Jairo brings samples of healthy foods like fruit and eggs to share with the students. Back at the ministry’s on-campus school, Jairo often presents devotionals and teaches discipleship classes with the students there.
A year ago, Jairo’s mom and two sisters were hired as caretakers of the campus. This pays a small salary, plus it comes with a simple house, where they are all allowed to live for free.
In Honduras, most people usually have only a piece of bread with coffee first thing in the morning. Later, around 9 a.m., after they are at school or work, they take a break and eat a more substantial breakfast of beans, eggs, and tortillas with additional items like cheese, sweet cream, sausage, and fried bananas. Parents either send a breakfast of this type in a sack with their children to school, or the children buy breakfast at a nearby inexpensive restaurant during their morning break.
However, the ministry’s campus is a bit isolated, and so there are no nearby restaurants. About three blocks away, there is a pulperia where the children can buy soft drinks, chips, and other snacks. But this is not a healthy breakfast. Furthermore, to get to the pulperia, the students must cross a busy street, which is dangerous.
Since he gives lectures on nutrition, Jairo was appalled at the situation once he discovered it. So he immediately began thinking about how his family could help remedy the state of things. He soon came up with the idea of turning their living room into a small “restaurant” serving a nutritious breakfast. To do this, Jairo applied for an interest-free microloan from the Society of the Good Shepherd. With the loan money, Jairo purchased a microwave, stove, refrigerator, shelving units, and the initial food inventory. Within a few weeks Jairo had the bare basics of his simple “restaurant” up and running in their living room.
Jairo takes care of the overall administration of the “restaurant,” and he keeps all the food supplies fully stocked. His mom and sisters do the cooking and serve the food. At the present time, they only offer a typical Honduran hot breakfast—which they provide at an affordable price. The restaurant has been an instant success, and most of the students are very enthusiastic about it. In fact, the students are already requesting more varieties of food. So Jairo sees considerable potential ahead.
Jairo feels truly blessed. First, he is providing the students with a nutritious breakfast, which goes hand-in-hand with his lectures on nutrition. At the same time, the restaurant provides much needed supplemental income for himself, his mother, and his sisters. He sees God’s goodness in all this, and he knows he is experiencing the love of many brothers and sisters who made all this possible.
The Society of the Good Shepherd, P. O. Box 122, Amberson, PA 17210 • (717) 349-7033
Click on the following link if you would care to make a donation to the work in Honduras: Honduras Donations
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