*This program originally aired on June 14, 2018
An extended voyage down the Mississippi River in a kayak hasn't always been high on Barb Geiger's list of things she wanted to do. But one Sunday morning in 2013, after weeks of preparation, Barb and her husband set off in a self-built kayak for an epic five month journey of paddling and service work.
“By having a hard start - with rain seven out of the first 10 days, two capsizes, and putting a hole in our boat in the rapids and having to get out of the water and fix it - we learned that the trip wasn’t really about the boat. The trip wasn’t really about the river,” she says. “The trip was really about the people.”
On this edition of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe talks with Geiger, author of Paddle for a Purpose: A Memoir, and her husband Gene, about the people and places that they encountered on their journey down the Mississippi.
“The journey made me much more trusting and much more aware of watching and listening for God’s direction in my life; and I think as far as community goes, it made me want to be a better person and want to encourage people, and motivate people, and provide some inspiration,” Geiger says.
