Honduras is a country in Central America roughly the size of Tennessee. Behind its world-class coral reefs, rain forests, and the remnants of an ancient Mayan civilization lies a tragic reality: the highest rate of AIDS in Central America. Honduras, with only 17% of the population of Central America, has over 60% of its AIDS cases.  San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in the country, is known as the AIDS capital of all Latin America. Unlike the United States, the primary infection path for AIDS in Honduras is heterosexual contact.

The greatest victims are youth and children.  Half of all AIDS cases are borne by teenagers. Even infants are affected in alarming numbers by this disease.  Since an estimated 5-8% of all pregnant women are HIV positive, they will bear children with a double burden: not only are they HIV positive, they will soon be orphaned, and abandoned on the streets. For those children without an extended family to take them in, the future is extremely grim. Some will be consigned to live in literal holes in the ground.  Some will die of malnutrition, some of the impact of impure water on a compromised immune system. Some will be abandoned.

A PLACE OF HOPE
Montana de Luz (translated as Mountain of Light) is a place of rescue and hope for children with HIV.  Physically, it is a 12 building complex on top of a small mountain in south central Honduras. It is a home for up to 40 children with bunk beds, brightly stenciled walls, and coloring books. But it is much more. It is simple but nutritious food, pure water, and medical care. It is a staff that functions like a family, children on laps, babes in arms. It is a daily morning routine of hearing that they are children of God and an evening routine of saying that for which they are grateful (if old enough to talk!). It is education. Montana de Luz is about health, hope, dignity, and love.

The goal is clear:  NO CHILD WITH HIV IN HONDURAS WILL BE LEFT ABANDONED. Montana de Luz is not a hospice where children await an inevitable death. Indeed death is inevitable for us all. But the deeper, spiritual understandings of life have always focused, not on the futility of an inevitable death, but upon the supreme value of living abundantly, a life that every child deserves.

By the end of 2006, Montana de Luz hopes to house up to 30 children. The benefits embraced by this project include:
1. Rescuing the children from primitive living conditions or even abandonment.
2. Restoring the children to health by removing intestinal parasites, and treating fungal and bacterial infections.
3. Providing the children with the security of a family including simple, nutritious food, pure water, and a safe environment.
4. Developing the children socially and intellectually.
5. Improving both the length and the quality of their lives by providing antiretroviral therapy.

In addition to the direct benefits provided to these children, are benefits provided to the local and global community that include:
1. A visible presence in a community of 30,000 persons raising the consciousness of the problem of HIV/AIDS in Honduras.
2. An opportunity for AIDS prevention education for the general population, which is the ultimate solution for AIDS until a cure is found.
3. An opportunity for education seminars and workshops for health care professionals and workers in the community to better equip them to deal with the AIDS crisis in Honduras.
4. A source of employment for persons of good will and industry in a country where the unemployment rate is 35% and the per capita income is $800.
5. A greater sense of the global community and the resources in the United States for persons who travel to Honduras to serve on mission teams to Montana de Luz.

THE NEED FOR SUPPORT
Montana de Luz is a non-profit organization and is supported entirely by contributions from individuals and corporations. The project has received the endorsement of numerous organizations and government officials in Honduras and the United States including the Honduran Ministry of Health, UNICEF, and Sister Maria Rosa who is known as the Mother Teresa of Latin America. Supporters of this project can be confident that the need and project concept have been validated by people knowledgeable in the field.

Globally, there are many needs in the world that appeal to the humanitarian impulse. However, Honduras is a neighbor of the United States. The project is close enough that hundreds of people have traveled to Honduras from California,  Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Texas to build Montana de Luz. Increasingly, Central Americans are making their homes in the United States and the issues among our international neighbors will become issues among the neighbors in our immediate communities.

While there are many needs among adult populations, sick children are the most defenseless of all human beings and therefore call forth the advocacy and support of those who have the blessing of strength and resources. The reader of this document is likely to have 50, 100, even 1000 times the resources of a typical child in Honduras, let alone one who is sick and without a family. The opportunity and privilege of speaking and acting on behalf of those who have no voice falls to those who have a voice and who have demonstrated a pattern of compassion through their living giving.

While AIDS is ultimately a Honduran problem and must be solved in Honduras, the current reality is that complete treatment of all AIDS victims in Honduras would exceed the money spent on all other heath issues combined. Therefore, the Honduran Ministry of Health has designated most of its resources to prevention of the disease. One of a small handful or programs addressing the needs of HIV children who are suffering now and deserve to receive the compassionate attention of the international community. Montana de Luz represents a unique giving opportunity within Central America for those with a heart for children suffering from this most deadly infectious disease.

From a return on investment standpoint, it is important to note that money in Honduras has a much a greater impact than the same amount of money in the United States. Similar programs providing full inpatient care for a child in the United States can cost over $500 per day contrasted with $30 per day for Montana de Luz. Thus, a contribution for HIV children in Honduras is leveraged 16 times over a similar investment in the United States. It is also important to note that Montana de Luz provides the entire constellation of services for an infected child who has no family including parenting, medical care, food, clothing, lodging, recreation, and education. It should not be compared with other programs that provide a single service to many more children.

Hundreds of people have linked arms to provide this place of hope for abandoned children with HIV. Supporters of Montana de Luz join groups as diverse as construction companies, Rotary International, Catholic and Protestant churches, and members of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. 

Someday there will be a cure for AIDS and every effort should be made to secure that reality. Until that day, Montana de Luz represents a commitment on the part of its contributors to care for children in their time of deepest vulnerability. Please help us share the simple yet profound gifts of Montana de Luz.