Whenever we travel around the world with all of our camera equipment, we have learned the importance of having contingency plans. We never know where God will lead, and we never want to say no to His leading simply because we are ill-prepared to follow His call.

One such instance came a few years ago when we had the opportunity to travel to a small island called Batbatan, located over an hour by boat off the coast of Panay, Philippines. I say over an hour because we were warned that travel times could vary drastically depending on the weather. And boy, did we get to experience that firsthand!

Whenever we travel, we carry waterproof covers and bags for all of our camera equipment, just in case we get caught in a rainstorm or need to travel by boat. What we don't have, however, are completely watertight cases that could be tossed overboard and survive such an event.

When we felt called to visit this island, we knew the risks of traveling with our equipment, especially considering that we would be making the journey in very small boats fitted with outriggers to help keep them from capsizing. With our time limited and our next flights already scheduled, we decided to trust God and agreed to visit the island. We placed our camera equipment inside thick trash bags, tightly twisting and folding the openings in hopes of keeping the salt water out.

The sea was quite rough on our journey to the island. The waves were choppy, but no more than three feet tall, so the conditions were manageable. The captains we had hired seemed experienced, which helped put our minds at ease. After about 45 minutes, we arrived on the island and began filming with a young man who had been serving there as a Bible worker for the past two years.

When this young man first arrived on the island, his primary goal was simply to make himself useful to the people living in this small community. Being the first known Bible worker to serve on the island in recent memory, he quickly discovered that this would be a challenging place to work. There were no Christians living on the island, and he felt very isolated and alone. He had moved there without knowing anyone and spent his first several months sleeping in a hammock or directly on the beach.

After a few months, the people began warming up to his presence. One day, while walking through a small group of houses just a short distance from the beach, he came across a rather nice-looking little house that appeared to be abandoned. Having lived essentially as a homeless man since arriving on the island, he became curious and asked the neighbors about the mysterious house.

"Oh, nobody goes near that house because it's haunted," one of the neighbors explained.

"Wait, what? Haunted?"

"Yes," the neighbor replied. "There are evil spirits living inside. We often hear them moving around the house when we walk along the path at night."

A smile came across the young Bible worker's face. He thought to himself, Maybe this is an opportunity to show the community that God is greater than any evil spirits.

He explained his living situation to the woman and asked whether he might be allowed to live in the abandoned house.

"If you want to tempt the evil spirits, be my guest," she replied.

He confidently responded, "My God is so much greater than those evil spirits. I am not afraid."

The villagers couldn't understand his bravery, but they allowed him to move in. By the island's standards, the house was quite nice, although still very humble. It was built of wood, with a metal roof and a few missing windows. Of course, on an island like this, missing windows weren't much of a concern.

On his first night in the house, he had little more than a thin mat on the floor and a sheet to cover himself. Before long, he was fast asleep.

Suddenly, he woke with a start. Something had pinched his toes, which were sticking out from beneath his sheet.

He quickly sat up and turned on his flashlight. There, at the end of his mat, sat a big, crusty, large-eyed crab. The creature had crawled up to his feet and given his toes a pinch. After a little investigating, he discovered that there were nearly two dozen crabs crawling around the building, making scratching noises as they moved across the wooden surfaces.

It didn't take long for him to realize that the mysterious noises the villagers had been hearing at night weren't evil spirits at all. The house was simply infested with crabs.

Despite the discovery that the house wasn't haunted, the community collectively decided that he was welcome to continue living there for as long as he wished, completely free of charge. No more sleeping on the beach or in a hammock. What an unexpected blessing this had turned out to be!

Over the following months, he developed a strong rapport with the community. He began giving Bible studies and even started holding small Sabbath church services in his home.

After about a year on the island, the community leaders approached him with a serious concern. The little government school had lost all but one of its teachers. Because of the island's remote location and difficult living conditions, the government was finding it nearly impossible to recruit teachers willing to live and work there.

The young Bible worker happened to have a background in teaching, and the community knew it. They asked whether he would be willing to help teach the students that year.

He responded, "I would be very happy to help the community by taking this on, but I would like to start a Bible class."

The community agreed to his request. Three weeks later, on a Monday morning, he walked down to the little school with his Bible in hand.

That day, for the first time in the island's history, a Bible class was taught in the government school.

Now, you might think this is the end of this amazing story, but you would be wrong.

After spending a wonderful day filming with this young Bible worker, we were given a place to rest for the night. Before going to sleep, we were told that we would need to be awake and down on the beach by 4 a.m. Because of the tides and some bad weather moving into the area, it was important that we leave the island early.

The following morning, we made our way down to the beach with all of our camera equipment wrapped in plastic and ready for the journey. The tide was so low that we had to wade out into the shallows, carefully watching our steps to avoid sea urchins, with little more than moonlight to guide us. We climbed into the boats and began our journey back to the mainland.

For the first 15 minutes or so, everything was relatively calm. But things quickly took a turn for the worse.

As the first light of morning began to appear, the ocean swells grew larger and larger. Soon, we were facing waves seven feet tall, some even higher. Our little boats would climb up the face of a massive wave before crashing down into what seemed like an endless chasm on the other side.

For a significant portion of the journey, there was no land in sight. Just our small boats surrounded by an enormous, angry sea. One moment, we would see the other boat rising high above us on a wave. The next, our boat would plunge into a trough, sending ocean water spraying everywhere as the other boat disappeared from view.

There was so much salt water spraying into our faces that our eyes began to burn. Meanwhile, our boat was steadily filling with water. Our translator and traveling companion had now been given the important task of bailing water. We looked back to see him sitting in the rear of the boat, his eyes as wide as saucers, frantically scooping out gallons of seawater with a plastic gallon jug that had its top cut off.

And just when we thought things couldn't get any worse, we looked over at our captain.

The same man who had appeared so confident and experienced on our journey to the island was now gripping the tiller tightly, leaning over the side of the boat, and vomiting violently into the sea.

We looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. We began praying silently.

And, if we're being completely truthful, our prayers weren't so much for ourselves as they were for the thousands of dollars' worth of camera equipment tied down in a tall, rather unstable pile of goods on our second boat. We assumed the other items were things the captain was bringing back from the island to sell on the mainland.

As it turned out, our captain wasn't vomiting because he was seasick. He had apparently consumed a large bottle of cheap rum the night before and was now suffering from a terrible hangover.

That was not exactly comforting!

After an hour and a half of this wild, unexpected carnival ride, we finally made it safely back to the mainland, completely soaked and quite chilled. To this day, we still praise the Lord that our camera equipment didn't go overboard and that not a drop of salt water managed to get inside our carefully wrapped bags.

But as we reflect on this experience, what stands out to us most isn't the terrifying boat ride or even the miraculous protection of our equipment. It's the young Bible worker who willingly chose to make that remote island his home.

Experiences like this remind us just how much so many missionaries sacrifice every day to serve on the front lines for Jesus.

With boldness and a deep conviction to share the love of Christ with others, they go. They don't expect glamour, recognition, or fanfare for the work they do. They willingly choose a life of sacrifice, often in difficult and isolated places, because of one thing.

Christ's love for people.