Ripppp! I froze, half-way into my seat, and slowly looked around to see if anyone else had heard the sound of fabric tearing. A man in a business suit strolled down the aisle of the airplane toward me. Across the aisle, a retired lady on group tour stared out the window at the ground crew preparing the plane for departure. Behind me, a middle-aged Filipino lady was already asleep. I seemed to have escaped detection.

It was Thursday, September 8, 2011, and I had just boarded a Boeing 727 at the San Francisco International Airport. Seventeen years ago, in the fall of 1994, my parents and I had stood in this same airport to board a plane that would take us to our new work among the Alangan tribe on the Philippine island of Mindoro. Now, after so many years, I was leaving from the same airport to begin my own life work.

Trying to act nonchalant, I ran my hand down my hip to inspect the damage. Sure enough, my threadbare jeans had decided to give way. For the next 27 hours of travel to Manila, I had the added comfort of air conditioning for my lower extremities. Yep, I was back to mission life—sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes comical, always unpredictable. However, God is good, and I could never ask for anything more.

His timing is also impeccable. In Manila, I found that I had arrived the very week of a major meeting between the local Union office and all the supporting ministries in the Philippines. Between trips around the city buying food, Bibles and medicines I wouldn’t be able to get on Mindoro, I was able to spend a day attending the meeting, building friendships with fellow laborers, and planning how we could best help each other to finish the work.

Bright and early at 2:45 the next Thursday morning, I caught a bus for the port city of Batangas and crammed all of my equipment and supplies into the luggage compartment. After several hours of trying to ignore the horror movie blaring over the bus’ loudspeakers, I arrived at the port to find that the ferry was closed to passengers due to a shipment of propane that had just arrived. Recalling the ferry that sank a few years ago after a huge propane tank blew up on its deck, I was satisfied to sit and wait with all the other travelers.

Thankfully, at 8 p.m. another ferry showed up. It was a rust bucket and extraordinarily slow. I sat in the hold to guard my supplies and slowly collected a nice coating of salt from spray flying over the bow as we crashed through the waves. We’re in the tail end of rainy season here, and the ocean was churning as we pulled up to the unprotected jetty at Abra de Ilog on the north end of Mindoro. A huge ferry was perched halfway up the concrete breakwater, tilting at a crazy angle. Her pilot had waited a second too long to reverse her engines, and a big wave had grounded her. There she sat waiting for a bigger wave to wash her off again.

After a mad rush up the jetty to a jumble of buses, jeepneys and vans vying for passengers, I caught a bus headed down the coast and up into the mountains. Four hours later, exactly 12 hours after I left the hotel that morning, I stepped off the bus at the trail into Pandarukan, the village where I grew up.

As I type this, my keyboard is sticky with humidity, a big tokay gecko is making a deafening croaking sound from its hiding place in the bamboo wall behind me, and the sun is peeking out from the morning’s rainclouds. There have been several new developments with the Batangan since I was last here. Just as I arrived, a call came from a border village on the south end of the tribe asking for someone to come and teach them. The Alangan church leaders and I were about to jump on the opportunity when God told Ramon in a dream to steer clear of that place. A new leader is in charge of the tribe’s foreign affairs there. God told Ramon that those Batangan would someday be receptive, but for now the political leaders would block us. As God guided Paul to Macedonia, He seems to be leading us to enter in the middle of the territory, and we hope to soon befriend a guide who will take us in. There will be several months of pre-work before I can fully move in. It will take time to build friendships and start overcoming the huge distrust the Batangan have of anything and anyone from the outside world. There is plenty to do for the time being, settling in and setting up shop. By God’s grace, the work is going forward.

This is a journey that began many, many years ago. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your prayers, support and encouragement! Thank you for answering the call and for doing your part in the work. This is a team effort, and I could not do it without you. There will be Batangan in the Kingdom because of your sacrifice.

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