Start a mission: offer literacy, teach basic health care, share faith, provide materials, plan better farms - it's all good. What could go wrong? Plenty. Stepping Off the Edge is the behind-the-scenes memoir of an American do-gooder who set off, in the late 1980s, for the remote hill country of the southern Philippines, fresh with ideals. Six years later, when she hiked back out for the last time, she had left the ideals far behind, along with most of her sanity. But she had stories. At the time, they were stories that couldn't be told. They didn't have the reverence and inspiration that encourages supporters; they didn't fulfill the mission dream. The humor might've been a little dark, and the events beyond belief. But they were the truth. And then, enough time passed to share them.