A recap: my 1st week and a half

Wow, these 2 weeks have really flown by. so much so that I haven't really blogged, whoops. But i will try my best to write a little bit here and there each day to keep you updated on my work and on how to pray..

Thus far, I have been learning Castellano and increasing my ability to speak it as fast as I can. On the plus side, people are very understanding of my poor grammar and inability to understand them at times and either speak slower or try to explain in other words that I might know.
I've gona to the villa several times now and there's a good handful of people that know and recognize me, but they're all in the same circle. ITs a fine group of Christians, and they know many more people, but they mostly stick to themselves, so it's been hard to make more contacts through them. There's one family in particular that I have been passing the majority of my days with and I already love them so much. Its a young family, with one 3 yr old son and one child on the way. They have truly taken me in and terated me as a part of their own family, and I've only known them for a weeks and a half! But they mostly stick to themselves and are almost always either at their business (a taxi service) or at their home. Even so, I have learned many many things through spending time with them that has been invaluable, but I need to start moving forward more quickly and meet more women in the villa.

I might have already explained this, but I can't just roam around the villa by myself. If you think of the danger in some ghettos in the states, maybe magnify that just a little bit. The police are even more absent here and more incapable of keeping crime out of the villa. only a few of the streets are large enough for cars to pass through. People use and sell drugs all over the place, alcohol is greatly abused here, and its definitely not safe for even residents at night. For this reason, I must always be with people whom I can trust and who are well known in the villa, or in the area of the villa I live in...or are at least recognizable by other residents of the villa. Also, there's other great types of evil here. There is a man, called Gauchito Hil, who is the supposed saviour of the poor. I don't know much about him or the legend behind it, but he comes from one of the provinces and many people worship his persona, in the place of Jesus (the mark of Gauchito Hil is a red cross or a red bandana around the neck...gauchito because he's a gaucho, Argentine cowboy). In this way and many others, like the drugs already mentioned, spiritual warfare is a daily occurence in the villa and for this, much prayer is needed.
All that to say, I am going to meet another women tonight, hopefully, that will help me connect me to even more women from the church (Andres told me that she's kind of a social butterfly). Please pray that we will connect well tonight and that our relationship will take off fast, but that I would use caution and wisdom in my time with her.

Other good news, but first an explanation. Thus far, my work and time has been very very flexible...almost too flexible to produce results. I am working in connection with an organization, but on the frontier of outreach into villas and I am the only person from this organization spending time in the villa Carcova. I don't have scheduled time of work, I don't really have someone overseeing me. I am working alongside Andres who has been ministering to the people of Carcova for some years now, but he works all day, every day. So I spend the day by myself, sometimes having plans to spend time with people. Well this past Monday and Tuesday was a National Holiday, the bicentennial celebration for the formation of Argentina. So Andres and most others were off from work. Two other people, from Andres's church, came with us to the villa, to meet with people and pray with each other and to possibly start a ministry in the villa. After these 2 days of spending time in the villa, it's been quite evident that the 4 of us should/need to unite together to form a group for ministry to the villa. EAch of us have different ideas as well Andres is a pastor focused on starting microenterprises with the people of the villa. The other girl has a passion for education. The other guy has a passion for serving children, the general youth, and fighting against abortion. And I have come to work with women and hopefully form a small group for savings to test it while I'm here, and to teach someone how to start a group so that she can continue my work when I'm gone. In this way, our group can together fight the multi-faceted face of poverty in Carcova. I am truly excited about this. We're meeting next Monday to decide when we could all meet with a large group of pastors of the villa to share our plans and intentions with them so we can all partner together. Please pray that I am well prepared for this first meeting and that we are all well prepared to meet with the pastors. Please also pray that the pastors will have an open mind to our ideas and that the way will be prepared for our ministry. We need great prayer right now in the unity of ourselves, the unity of believers withint the villa, and the guidance by God of our service to Carcova.

Thanks for reading and for your prayers.
I look forward to updating you much more often and in smaller excerpts from now on :)
Mucho gusto,
Chao chao,
Claire