Arrival in Manila

We have arrived in a wet and humid Manila after a 16 hour flight. Tim Lee, CMS mission partner and Jigsaw staff worker met us off the plane, Tim Dendy our freelance film maker and the youth and children's team from CMS. On our journey to the Mission guest house, Tim gave us a brief glimpse into a culture where mobiles are so common that Nokia uses Manila as a testing ground but where many of the children that Jigsaw work with are invisible and voiceless in the urban culture. Having quickly unpacked our things we had an evening meal with both Tim and Kate Lee and their 3 children, who created this banner for us all (In pic) as a welcome gift. In spite of our tiredness we began a discussion about how we will shoot the Dvd, Tim shared with us that when they first started to work with Jigsaw their aim was to put shoes on every child. However the children would keep coming back to the project in bare feet. They quickly learnt to focus on their real needs rather than on what they thought they needed. I think as we meet the children and learn about jigsaw's work we will need to apply the same observational skills to see what the children's stories really are about rather than what we think they should be. I think these 10 days will be a big learning curve for us all.