The room is chockablock — or seems to be. Also, a baby is crying. Yet there is a center of gravity in Cesar Santoyo, a mission coordinator from the United Church of Christ in the Philippines. While small meetings take place all around, he calmly sets up a promo DVD with one hand, and soothes the baby with the other.
Santoyo is mission director of the Center for Japanese-Filipino Families (CJFF), in Room 32 of the Japan Christian Center in Tokyo's Nishi-Waseda area of Shinjuku. The Japan Christian Center in itself is a surprise, one of a cluster of Christian-associated buildings gathered around a courtyard just off a main street.
"This office — CJFF — has been here since 2000," Santoyo explains. "It was set up by the United Church of Christ in Japan for the welfare of Filipino women married to Japanese after I identified that these families have a particular problem. The turn of millennium seemed a good time to start trying to help."