villas in Argentina

So our team joined up with another organization last week and went into the villas. the term "villa" means the slums. however, i´ve honestly never seen anything like it. i´ve seen poverty first hand in central america, but these villas are different. We went into the villas with a missionary from Peru. He is now living among the people and loving them in any way that he can. the small house that we're outside of holds a family of 12 and it's about the size of a bedroom. there are no floors...only mud and dirt...they have tin roofs, one full sized bed. they had some food on the shelves...a few pieces of french bread. it's really impossible to try and explain in words, but it was their home and they were content. the mom you can see on the left is holding her youngest of 7 kids and she's 2 months pregnent. her oldest daughter already has 2 kids of her own...i think she's 18. this is a family of believers. it was awesome hearing their story and being able to love them just by being there and listening to their story. we did bring some clothes from a church here who donates clothing to Andrea and his ministry there.
there are 10,000 people who live in this one villa...the name is Carcova. it's one of 5 in Suarez (which is where we live) you see these villas everywhere though. it's the central one in our "town" b-c it's the largest. drugs and prostitution are common within the villas here. kids start using and dealing drugs at the age of 10. girls that are 12 and 13 are involved in prostitution...Andreas was telling us how his ministry reaches out to the youth, which I think is awesome because this is this is a very influential age in peoples lives. He has plans to start up a sports ministry and is in the process of cleaning up two areas that he's like to have futbol fields.
All these questions started flashing thru my head...medical care, food, clean water. Where does this come from? That day was very tough. I still don´t think my mind has been able to totally wrap around what it would be like to live in a villa. We have places like this back in the States in every big city. A lot of questions come to mind when I think if different social classes...why did God place me where He did? I don't have the answer, but I trust in His soverignty. In the mean time, all I can do is love people.

Because of an email from a "ragpicker" (as they call themselves) I have been convicted for my initial response to what I saw and experienced that day in Carcova. I'm not sure how he found me, but he did, and I'm glad he did. Joos, I need to apologize to you and ask for your forgivness for the disrespectful things I said in this blog. I tried to go back through and fix a few comments that were totally inappropriate. Thank you for sending me the link and for broadening my perspective of the cartonero movement. (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0125/p20s01-woam.html) I will continue to pray for the villas here in Argentina, but now it will be will a clearer and more accurate perspective.