We consider the summation equation, for $t\in {[\mu -2,\mu +b]}_{{\mathbb{N}}_{\mu -2}}$, $$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill y\left(t\right)={\gamma }_1\left(t\right)H_1\left(\sum _{i=1}^n{a}_{i}y\left({\xi }_i\right)\right)& +{\gamma }_2\left(t\right)H_2\left(\sum _{i=1}^m{b}_{i}y\left({\zeta }_i\right)\right)\hfill & \hfill +\lambda \sum _{s=0}^{b}G(t,s)f(s+\mu -1,y(s+\mu -1))\end{array}$$ in the case where the map $(t,s)\mapsto G(t,s)$ may change sign; here $\mu \in (1,2]$ is a parameter, which may be understood as the order of an associated discrete fractional boundary value problem. In spite of the fact that $G$ is allowed to change sign, by introducing a new cone we are able to establish the existence of at least one positive solution to this problem by imposing some growth conditions on the functions $H_1$ and $H_2$. Finally, as an application of the abstract existence result,...