Latest / Witness the Wonder Christian Podcast: Supernatural Christian Testimonies, Miracles, and God Stories / When You Don’t Know If You’ll Make It Through the Storm | Alison Gieschen's Survival God Story

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When You Don’t Know If You’ll Make It Through the Storm | Alison Gieschen's Survival God Story · Witness the Wonder Christian Podcast: Supernatural Christian Testimonies, Miracles, and God Stories

• 0:00
  When we first started getting into the heart of the storm and
• 0:03
  the waves built up to like 1820 feet and they started crashing
• 0:08
  on the bow of our boat, I was so terrified I couldn't even be up
• 0:12
  in the cockpit with Dan. He was up there on his own and I
• 0:15
  was cowering in my bed and I there was 2 cockpit windows on
• 0:20
  the each side of my where our bedroom is and I could see white
• 0:25
  water on both sides of the boat after I heard the waves hit so I
• 0:29
  knew we were submarining. We were actually getting washed
• 0:32
  over our entire boat with these gigantic waves and it was
• 0:35
  absolutely horrifying. And then this horrible, horrible
• 0:38
  sound erupted from the boat. It just felt like and sounded
• 0:42
  like the boat was being ripped apart.
• 0:44
  And what had happened was a wave came and we had our dinghy,
• 0:50
  which was really heavy, like several 100 lbs tied to some
• 0:54
  hand rails, some teak hand rails that were on the bow of the boat
• 0:56
  in front of them. And the dinghy was filled with
• 1:00
  scuba gear and scuba tanks and like really heavy stuff.
• 1:04
  And it ripped the dinghy, ripped the the screws out of the deck
• 1:08
  and it washed the entire dinghy through the life lines.
• 1:11
  And like I said, the sound was horrendous.
• 1:14
  The boat shuttered. But the worst part was that the
• 1:17
  dinghy was tied to our mast. And so as it's banging against
• 1:20
  the side of the boat, threatening to damage our boat,
• 1:23
  it was also threatening to take our mast off.
• 1:25
  And I thought, if that happens, we're done.
• 1:28
  I mean, we're not going to survive this.
• 1:30
  So Dan is screaming for me to come up on deck and I ran up on
• 1:34
  deck and he had he had his life jacket on, but he had to to hook
• 1:37
  into these what's called Jack lines that allow you to walk
• 1:40
  down the deck but still stay tied to the boat.
• 1:43
  And he had to go up front and he had to cut the dinghy free, cut
• 1:46
  through that rope so that it would not continue to damage our
• 1:49
  boat. And when he cut it and I saw how
• 1:52
  quickly it disappeared into the sea, I mean, it was gone in the
• 1:54
  blink of an eye. I've never seen anything
• 1:55
  disappear so quickly. And I thought to myself, if he
• 1:58
  goes in, I'm just going in with him.
• 2:00
  I am not going to be on this boat by myself.
• 2:02
  I'm going to jump into that sea. I'd rather die in the sea with
• 2:05
  him than be here on this boat by myself.
• 2:08
  It was absolutely terrifying. Welcome to Witness the Wonder.
• 2:23
  If you're looking for hopeful stories of how God shows up in
• 2:27
  real life, follow the show. I'm Christina.
• 2:30
  And today this one is for you. If you've ever found yourself in
• 2:33
  the middle of a storm wondering, am I going to make it through
• 2:37
  this? If that's you, you need to hear
• 2:40
  Allison Kishan's story. Allison, thank you for being
• 2:43
  here today. Well.
• 2:44
  Thank you for having me. So let's go back to that moment
• 2:47
  before you got into the hardest storm.
• 2:50
  What were the conditions like when it first started?
• 2:53
  Well, we had, we were working with a weather router and that's
• 2:56
  somebody who is a weather professional that tells you when
• 2:59
  you should cross and what to expect the weather.
• 3:02
  And he had told us the day before, you have 24 hours to get
• 3:05
  across the Gulf Stream because there's a storm coming.
• 3:08
  And usually the Gulf Stream is very contentious.
• 3:10
  There's this big current that runs parallel to the East Coast.
• 3:13
  And, you know, it's like a river.
• 3:15
  And because it's going in a different direction than the
• 3:18
  rest of the ocean, they can often be really, really
• 3:19
  turbulent. But we got across that just
• 3:22
  fine. Like, we sailed across it and we
• 3:24
  are going into the next night. We switched watches around 5:00
• 3:27
  AM because we did 3 hours on, three hours off all night
• 3:30
  because somebody has to be up there at all times.
• 3:32
  And it was about 5:00 in the morning when I went up, and it
• 3:35
  was dark and the sun started coming up over the horizon.
• 3:39
  And the wind was pretty strong. But we had our sails reefed,
• 3:42
  which means we bring them into their smallest size so that it,
• 3:45
  you know, helps us stay stable and not too rocky and not be
• 3:49
  overbearing with the wind and being healing too much.
• 3:51
  It keeps us up straighter. So our sails were all set for
• 3:54
  the wind to pick up. But then as the light came up
• 3:57
  over the horizon, I see this giant wave coming.
• 4:00
  And I'm like, terrified. And I'm like holding on.
• 4:02
  And the boat goes up and it goes over the wave and it goes back
• 4:05
  down. And I'm going, wait a minute.
• 4:07
  That's how I've been feeling. Does that really the size of
• 4:10
  these waves? And then I sure enough, I looked
• 4:12
  and I saw another one coming and I'm like, Oh my gosh, these
• 4:15
  waves are huge. And like I got, I just got
• 4:18
  totally anxious and our bed is right below the cockpit.
• 4:21
  So I start stamping on the floor screaming, Dan, Dan, you got to
• 4:24
  come up here. You got to come up here.
• 4:25
  So it comes up and he goes, what's the matter?
• 4:27
  I'm only look at the size of these waves.
• 4:29
  I'm like, I can't handle this. I'm not prepared for this.
• 4:32
  It was our first ocean crossing and you know, here these waves
• 4:35
  were huge. They were like 12 feet tall or
• 4:37
  something. So he takes over.
• 4:40
  He says, just go downstairs. So I went downstairs and they
• 4:44
  started getting bigger and pretty soon they're 1718 feet
• 4:48
  and like every 3rd or 4th 1 is breaking because we were in.
• 4:52
  If you've seen the movie A Perfect Storm, where two systems
• 4:56
  converge and the waves in between get higher and higher
• 4:59
  and they start breaking sooner, that's exactly where we were.
• 5:01
  We were inside A perfect storm, So they started breaking onto
• 5:05
  our boat and it just was devastating.
• 5:07
  The water was just like, it was like basically on a submarine
• 5:10
  going through these waves. So that was just a really,
• 5:12
  really scary moment. I mean the whole episode was
• 5:14
  scary, but that first realization of how big these
• 5:17
  waves are was just terrifying. So how quickly did it go from
• 5:20
  normal to dangerous? Went pretty quick, like they,
• 5:24
  they built quickly because the intensity of the wind picked up.
• 5:27
  So the wind was like in the 30 knots and the waves just built
• 5:31
  really. And plus there's another storm
• 5:32
  pushing from behind. So I'm sure that it progressed
• 5:35
  much quicker than a normal storm would have.
• 5:37
  A normal storm we would have been able to run out and be
• 5:39
  safe, but this one didn't give us that opportunity.
• 5:42
  Wow, so at that point you weren't sure if you were going
• 5:44
  to make it through? I was I was hunkered in my
• 5:47
  bedroom doing a lot of praying. I bet, I bet, I just.
• 5:52
  Get us through this. This is your first time out, you
• 5:56
  just started living your dream and it's quickly turning into a
• 6:01
  nightmare when you're like ready to give up at that point.
• 6:05
  Absolutely. We made it a phone call.
• 6:07
  We only had satellite phones back then which were really hard
• 6:10
  to use and not very reliable. We managed to get a hold of my
• 6:13
  cousin who is a sailor on shore in the heart of the storm.
• 6:17
  And we said, give us an update on the weather, what's
• 6:19
  happening. And he goes, you have to get off
• 6:21
  the Atlantic now. And Dan said, but you know,
• 6:24
  we're, we could get to Bermuda in like 2 days.
• 6:27
  And, and Norman's like, no, you've got to get off.
• 6:29
  There's another storm coming from the South.
• 6:31
  You have to get off the Atlantic.
• 6:33
  So Dan's like, OK, we're going to tack, we're going to change
• 6:36
  our direction of sale and we're going to head back to shore.
• 6:39
  So we tacked, we turned around, we started heading towards
• 6:42
  shore, and the winds started to go ease and the waves started to
• 6:47
  settle down. And the sun came out of the
• 6:48
  clouds and a pot of dolphins came and surrounded our boat.
• 6:51
  And they started jumping and leaping.
• 6:54
  And it was just like you could just hear the Angel singing, you
• 6:56
  know, it was just the most magical moment.
• 6:59
  And at that point, I knew we're going to get back safely.
• 7:02
  This is going to be OK. And when we did get back, we had
• 7:07
  $14,000 worth of damage to our boat, damage and losses.
• 7:11
  And the insurance paid every dime of that, everything to be
• 7:14
  replaced. But the damage that it did to me
• 7:17
  and to my confidence was something I didn't know if I
• 7:20
  could overcome, like I don't know if I can never get over.
• 7:22
  This that was going to be my next question is, you know, you
• 7:26
  made it through the storm and yes, the boat was damaged, but
• 7:29
  that's all repairable. But the the wounds, the trauma
• 7:34
  that happened inside of you from it, it's repairable, but it
• 7:37
  doesn't get repaired probably quite as quickly.
• 7:40
  When you went back after the boat was fixed, did you just
• 7:42
  immediately go back out? So we went down the East Coast
• 7:46
  of the US to Charleston where we got a lot of our repairs done
• 7:52
  and my daughter had just qualified for the 2018 World or
• 7:56
  2010 World Equestrian Games, which are being held in North
• 7:59
  Carolina. We went to the Bahamas because
• 8:02
  it was easier to get there. It was just a couple hours sail
• 8:05
  to get across the Gulf Stream and they were very close.
• 8:07
  So we got our experience in the in the Bahamas and the islands
• 8:11
  are all close together. And it did settle my nerves and
• 8:14
  gave me some confidence again. But then eventually we were
• 8:19
  ready to cross the ocean again and we were with another rally
• 8:22
  because we were actually with a group that sails across, but we
• 8:25
  had gotten separated because we had some engine issues in the
• 8:27
  beginning. So once again we were with
• 8:30
  another group of people. It's called the sailboat rally,
• 8:32
  and you go together across. And this time it wasn't as bad,
• 8:36
  but it was still pretty awful. We had 30 knot winds and huge
• 8:40
  seas. And every time the wind started
• 8:42
  going faster than it was supposed to and the waves got
• 8:45
  bigger. I had like just panic attacks
• 8:47
  and I kept thinking to myself, this isn't worth it.
• 8:49
  Like this level of being afraid. I can't do this all the way
• 8:53
  around the world. So he made it to the Caribbean
• 8:56
  and our next crossing was going to be across the Atlantic all
• 9:00
  the way to Europe. And we were going to stop at the
• 9:02
  Azores and stop in Ireland and, and eventually get to Europe.
• 9:07
  And every morning I'd wake up and tell myself, I got to tell
• 9:10
  him, today's the day. I'm going to tell him I can't do
• 9:12
  this. Like you can get a crew, you can
• 9:14
  hire a crew, whatever, get somebody to volunteer and you
• 9:16
  can cross the oceans and I'll meet you there.
• 9:17
  But I cannot do this. So we were in the harbor of
• 9:22
  Saint Maarten, which is where we were taking off to start the
• 9:25
  crossing. And we went in, dropped anchor.
• 9:28
  And I'm like, oh, I got to tell him, I got to tell him.
• 9:30
  And then all of a sudden Dan notices on our AIS, which is a
• 9:33
  system that tells you the name of every single boat around you,
• 9:36
  what length they are, who owns them, the boat's name.
• 9:39
  And three boats away was our mentor who mentored us to take
• 9:43
  our the sailing voyage. And that would had been two
• 9:46
  years prior. So the earth covered 80 percent
• 9:48
  in water of all the islands and all the harbors.
• 9:51
  The person who mentored us and prepared us for this trip was
• 9:54
  three boats away. So we call him on the radio and
• 9:58
  tell him, hi, John, It's Dan and Allison.
• 10:00
  We found our boat. We're out here sailing.
• 10:02
  And he's like, great, Come on, overcome on over.
• 10:03
  So we're like, OK, so we go over and join them, and there's a
• 10:06
  couple other people on board because he's really famous.
• 10:08
  He's written five books, and everybody knows him, and he's
• 10:11
  mentored so many people. So everybody wants to, you know,
• 10:13
  go say hi to him. And so there's a couple other
• 10:15
  people there. And finally, he turns to me and
• 10:17
  he goes, say, so, Alison, and how's it going?
• 10:20
  I start tearing up and I'm like, John, it was terrible.
• 10:23
  And I tell him the whole story of the storm, and he starts
• 10:26
  laughing and like, why are you laughing?
• 10:28
  And he goes, do you know how lucky you are?
• 10:30
  And I'm like, no, he goes, your boat did fine, your husband did
• 10:34
  fine, and most importantly, you're still out here.
• 10:36
  He said, do you know how many people the first thing they
• 10:38
  would have done is brought the boat back to shore, sold it and
• 10:41
  never gone out in the ocean again.
• 10:43
  And he said and that situation that you were in with the storms
• 10:47
  converging like that, because the chances of you being a two
• 10:50
  of those in a lifetime are probably 0.
• 10:53
  And you made it so you are good to go.
• 10:55
  And he was the only person on the planet.
• 10:57
  It could have looked at me and told me that and I would have
• 10:59
  believed him. And God put him three boats
• 11:01
  away. What did that moment really mean
• 11:05
  to you? It saved.
• 11:07
  It saved our voyage. I mean it just at that point I
• 11:09
  knew this was not my journey. This was not my journey.
• 11:13
  This was preordained and it was destiny and I was not going to
• 11:18
  let fear tell me that I couldn't do that because that's a
• 11:21
  horrible reason. Now, yes, if the fears are
• 11:23
  justified, if it's life threatening, but it wasn't.
• 11:26
  It was just me being reactive to a really bad experience.
• 11:29
  Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I think it was,
• 11:32
  it was. I agree that it was totally
• 11:34
  justified. I think I would have been
• 11:36
  terrified. I think anybody would have been
• 11:39
  terrified in that situation. So it's understandable.
• 11:43
  So did the fears immediately go away or it just a reassurance to
• 11:48
  you helped ease your mind that this is not what you went
• 11:52
  through, wasn't normal? We fortunately we still had some
• 11:55
  really scary things happen. For instance, we were stopping
• 11:58
  in Bermuda and we got there, our engine died and we had to get
• 12:02
  towed into a harbor because it was a very narrow harbor going
• 12:05
  between these big Cliff walls in Bermuda to get into the sailing
• 12:09
  harbor. And we're out there floating
• 12:10
  with no engine and not able to sail into the harbor because the
• 12:13
  wind is coming straight out and you can't sail.
• 12:15
  And if something can't do this, so we had to call for an
• 12:19
  emergency towing. So we didn't even get to our
• 12:22
  first destination without, you know, an emergency happening.
• 12:25
  But I handled that really well. I was really proud of myself.
• 12:28
  I didn't get too uptight. I was anxious, but everything
• 12:31
  worked out fine. Turned out that we had some bad
• 12:34
  fuel that clogged our fuel lines and just had to be cleaned out
• 12:37
  and everything was good to go. And then the rest of the
• 12:39
  passages getting to Europe where the wind was strong and then the
• 12:44
  waves were pretty choppy. But I never really felt anxious.
• 12:48
  So I felt anxiety on the fringes.
• 12:50
  But I kept remembering what John kept saying and I just, I'm
• 12:55
  like, I have to believe in this process.
• 12:57
  And I just did a lot of praying and a lot of just reassurance
• 13:01
  and breathing and, you know, kept it at Bay.
• 13:03
  And the other thing that kept me going is one of John has
• 13:06
  published 5 books and one of the books that he wrote was about a
• 13:09
  world record He broke broke on a little boat called Gigi was a 32
• 13:13
  foot Contessa at this tiny little 32 foot boat.
• 13:16
  He went from the 44th parallel, which is New York City, all in
• 13:20
  South America around that horrible Cape, and then Cape
• 13:24
  Horn, and then all the way up to San Francisco, which is the 44th
• 13:27
  parallel on the West Coast. And that's the trade route the
• 13:30
  Clipper ships used to take before the Panama Canal was
• 13:33
  open. And he broke the world record
• 13:35
  for the smallest boat doing that passage.
• 13:37
  So he was, when we took our sailing passage with him for
• 13:40
  training and heavy weather, he was telling us I had read his
• 13:43
  books, but he was telling us the personal stories, like out of
• 13:46
  his mouth from his personal view.
• 13:48
  And I just absolutely loved it. You know, after reading a book,
• 13:50
  having the person that lived it fill in the details was amazing.
• 13:53
  So he's his boat capsized, he fell overboard, got back on it
• 13:57
  and he was in 30 foot waves. So I told you what the 20 foot
• 14:01
  waves did to my boat. He was in 30 foot waves and this
• 14:04
  32 foot boat and the waves were so high that he could see fish
• 14:07
  swimming in the water above his boat.
• 14:09
  That's how big these waves were. So when I started getting
• 14:13
  panicky, I'm like, you know what if that little 32 foot GG could
• 14:17
  do this, our boat is twice as big and blue water prepared,
• 14:22
  thick hull, like a very strong, sturdy, safe boat that can go
• 14:26
  anywhere in the world. I'm like, if Gigi can do it, we
• 14:29
  can do it. That's what I love about stories
• 14:33
  and that's why we do what we do here on witness the wonder,
• 14:35
  because stories help build faith.
• 14:37
  You know, I mean when you hear something elses story of how
• 14:41
  they made it through, kind of encouraged you, right, and give
• 14:44
  you and build your faith up to say, you know what, we can do
• 14:48
  this. You know, God got John knows if
• 14:50
  he John through that, he'll get you through it.
• 14:54
  You know, I think that's cool. Have to tell you another part of
• 14:57
  that story, which is how I know that God has his hand in this.
• 15:00
  Like without a doubt, 100%. So Fast forward to we were
• 15:05
  sailing through the Scottish Isles and there are hundreds of
• 15:08
  Scottish Isles. They're just spread out all over
• 15:10
  the place. We pull into one little small
• 15:12
  tiny harbor with one single dock and we put our boat there and it
• 15:17
  was they had a small grocery store.
• 15:18
  We had to walk 2 miles, but we walked and we got some groceries
• 15:22
  and got back to our boat. And the next morning, we woke up
• 15:25
  because we just were there one night just to get some
• 15:26
  groceries. And Dan was, I was standing
• 15:29
  behind the wheel to take the boat away.
• 15:30
  He was undoing the dock lines. And he was Allison, you got to
• 15:33
  come out on the dock right now. And I'm like, what's wrong?
• 15:36
  You know, I start getting anxious and I get down off the
• 15:38
  boat and he goes, do you see that boat tied in front of us?
• 15:41
  I'm like, yes, he goes, that's a Contessa 32.
• 15:44
  I'm like no way. He goes look at the name on the
• 15:47
  boat and I what looked and it was Gigi and the man that owned
• 15:51
  the boat came walking up and I said to him, is this the Gigi?
• 15:55
  And he goes, yes, it is. And I just started crying and I
• 15:58
  said, can I put my hands on her? Can I just touch her?
• 16:00
  She got me through everything. Like I was just like crying and
• 16:04
  I was just this world is so big. What are the chances of running
• 16:07
  into the boat that I visualize to help me get through, you
• 16:14
  know, these tough times? Like is that not?
• 16:17
  When you ran into John and was it?
• 16:19
  The well, exactly, that's the first time.
• 16:21
  That's the first time in the Caribbean that I said this is
• 16:24
  not, it's not my voyage. And then it was confirmed by
• 16:27
  running into the boat that I pictured that was in his Serb.
• 16:30
  But the chances of finding that and it hadn't even been in the
• 16:33
  water, it had been in a museum in England, was the last time
• 16:38
  that I knew the boat and somebody took it out of the
• 16:41
  museum and refurbished it and sailed in it because of its
• 16:45
  history. So I wasn't even aware that it
• 16:47
  was still on the ocean. That's so cool.
• 16:49
  Your challenges with this trip haven't stopped necessarily.
• 16:54
  You're in fact going through a on your trip right now.
• 16:59
  But your response to it after everything you've already been
• 17:03
  through is a little different this time, right?
• 17:06
  What has God taught you about trusting Him through all of
• 17:10
  this? Well, he has given me a phrase
• 17:13
  that I refer to all the time because it is the truth and it
• 17:17
  is. We are exactly where we are when
• 17:19
  we are meant to be there. And there is no doubt in my mind
• 17:22
  that every single We've been in five countries now for three
• 17:26
  months or more, waiting for both parts.
• 17:28
  It's not if something's going to break, it's when.
• 17:31
  And if you can find the part quickly, that's great.
• 17:33
  But if you can't, you have to take this Herculean effort to
• 17:37
  find the part and get it shipped to wherever your location is.
• 17:39
  And our boat part broke. It's a part in the engine, and
• 17:43
  they don't make the engine anymore and they don't make that
• 17:45
  part anymore. So we had to pull it out of the
• 17:47
  boat and ship it to Tahiti, which is the nearest
• 17:49
  civilization. And they took them three months
• 17:52
  and they sent it back, said it was fixed.
• 17:53
  We put it in, went to start our engine and they did not fix it.
• 17:57
  So now we are waiting for boat parts, but I don't feel any
• 18:02
  anxiety. I don't feel I'm.
• 18:03
  I'm sad because our friends have come through this harbor and
• 18:06
  we've, you know, spent time with them and they've all moved on to
• 18:09
  go and do wonderful things. But just the other night, we
• 18:12
  were sitting on the bow of our boat and watching the sunset and
• 18:17
  there's maybe 40 boats anchored in this harbor from all over the
• 18:19
  world. We look out and we see a boat
• 18:21
  that's trying to enter the harbor.
• 18:23
  And there's actually 2 boats. And one of them came in nicely
• 18:26
  and it anchored. And I kept looking at it, this
• 18:28
  other boat and it wasn't moving. It wasn't going anywhere.
• 18:30
  And I said, damn, I think that boat's in trouble.
• 18:31
  And he goes, no, they're probably just caught a fish.
• 18:34
  You know, when you catch a fish on a sailboat, you got to like
• 18:36
  take down the sails and, you know, stop everything, get the
• 18:38
  fish on board because they're usually big and it's a real
• 18:41
  struggle. So they probably just caught a
• 18:43
  fish. I'm like, OK, so we're sitting
• 18:45
  there and then like 20 minutes later, I could see them between
• 18:49
  two boats that were anchored, so I could tell if they're moving.
• 18:51
  I'm like, damn, they're not moving, that is not normal.
• 18:53
  So finally goes, OK, I'll go down and turn on our marine
• 18:56
  radio. So the first thing everybody
• 18:58
  does when they get dropped their anchor is turn off the radios.
• 19:00
  There's like nobody on the radio.
• 19:02
  He turns it on and within 3 minutes we hear somebody going
• 19:05
  pan, pan, pan, pan or a boat in distress.
• 19:08
  And sure enough, they had been calling, but nobody had their
• 19:11
  radio on. There's no marine police,
• 19:14
  There's no Coast Guard, There's nobody on these islands to
• 19:16
  rescue. And they were going to get swept
• 19:19
  out to sea. And had we not been sitting
• 19:22
  there at that time looking out, you know, who knows what would
• 19:25
  have happened to those people? So, you know, we're paying it
• 19:28
  forward here when when we've been in trouble, people have
• 19:30
  been there for us. And I'm really glad that we were
• 19:32
  here because we were able to call somebody and say these
• 19:35
  people need help. And while there was no official
• 19:37
  boat to go help them, he, you know, got a boat together and
• 19:40
  went out and help them get in the harbor.
• 19:42
  Those are divine appointments right there, like divine moments
• 19:46
  where God just orchestrates it all to work all things together
• 19:50
  for our good is what the how the Bible says so I love it.
• 19:53
  You had a vision when you were a little girl, didn't you?
• 19:57
  I remember as if it was yesterday that I was walking.
• 20:00
  I can remember my bare feet in the grass and I can remember
• 20:02
  looking up towards the garden. Need a huge garden?
• 20:05
  And this one spot, I think there was like gateway to heaven there
• 20:09
  because several really strange things happen there that I
• 20:12
  cannot explain. And they happened in the same
• 20:15
  spot. It always happened when I was
• 20:16
  there by myself and they were just like earth shattering.
• 20:20
  And one of them was all of a sudden I found myself like a
• 20:25
  waking dream, standing on a boat powered by sails and flying
• 20:29
  across the surface of the water. And I was just absolutely
• 20:32
  enthralled. Now, mind you, there was no
• 20:34
  water around us. We had a pond and that's it, you
• 20:36
  know, a small pond. But there was no lakes or for
• 20:39
  anywhere for me to see sailing. And it wasn't like I watched TV
• 20:43
  back then, even hardly, so it wasn't like I saw a movie.
• 20:46
  So I I was just blown away by how amazing this feeling was of
• 20:50
  being on a boat and being sailing across the water.
• 20:52
  And I thought, how cool would it be to go all the way around the
• 20:55
  world on a sailboat just powered by the wind?
• 20:58
  You met your husband. That was kind of a fun story
• 21:01
  too. Can you explain how you met your
• 21:03
  husband? Well, since I was into the
• 21:06
  sailing, the sailing racing, I had to go visit my mom who moved
• 21:11
  to retire to New Bern, NC, which is on the coast of the Pamlico
• 21:17
  Sound, this giant sound that goes out to the ocean.
• 21:20
  And she decided she had to be the fastest woman skipper in the
• 21:23
  Pamlico Sound in the in the racing world.
• 21:26
  There were no other woman skippers.
• 21:28
  So now she just decided, well, I got to be the fastest skipper
• 21:30
  then. And she did amazing and she's
• 21:32
  winning trophies and regattas and then race series.
• 21:35
  And then she had this really big regatta coming up.
• 21:38
  And it was a four hour drive for me to go from UNCC where I was
• 21:41
  in college to, to the new bird. So it's the eight hour drive by
• 21:45
  myself. But like, I got to go to this
• 21:46
  regatta. So meanwhile, my cousin was
• 21:49
  working at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard 11 hours north
• 21:53
  and next to him he had an eligible bachelor who was a
• 21:57
  Kings Point Merchant Marine graduate and a three time
• 22:01
  National Dinghy champion. And he said to him, hey friend,
• 22:05
  you want to come on, come on down and be a ringer on my Aunt
• 22:07
  Jerry's boat for this big regatta.
• 22:10
  And Dan is like, yeah, absolutely.
• 22:12
  So the two of them came down and we met that weekend.
• 22:15
  We sailed, we won the race, we scuba dived, we windsurfed, we
• 22:19
  canoed, we did all these amazing fun things.
• 22:22
  And I was just like, hopelessly in love with this guy already.
• 22:26
  So at the end of the long weekend, we're saying our
• 22:29
  goodbyes. And he said, you know, my dream
• 22:31
  is to sail around the world someday.
• 22:33
  I'm like, mine too, let's get married.
• 22:35
  So he proposed the 4th day we were together after that
• 22:38
  weekend. And I said yes.
• 22:40
  And his dad was a Lutheran minister.
• 22:42
  And he performed the wedding ceremony on the country on the
• 22:45
  Yacht Club lawn where we met. That's awesome.
• 22:48
  That's good. That's how I put you together.
• 22:51
  He matches people beautifully like that.
• 22:53
  I love it. And so did you immediately get
• 22:56
  married and then sail around the world?
• 22:58
  So we, we got married down in North Carolina and he had this.
• 23:03
  I was just graduating college at the time.
• 23:06
  So I had was an English major and I wanted to be a journalist,
• 23:09
  but it was just impossible for me to like even begin to try to
• 23:13
  do something down there. So we we got married and I moved
• 23:16
  back up north where he lived because he had the job and was
• 23:19
  established and he bought some property in New Jersey and I
• 23:24
  came with horses. So he built me a beautiful horse
• 23:26
  farm and he built it from scratch because we didn't have
• 23:29
  much money. So he ground up, dug every fence
• 23:32
  post hole for the pastures. He spent two years building our
• 23:37
  home every night after working on weekends.
• 23:39
  And he physically built this beautiful home for us.
• 23:42
  And we had our kids right away. So we had three kids under 4 and
• 23:47
  a bunch of horses. About 2530 years later, when our
• 23:51
  last son got married, he looked at me one day and said it's
• 23:53
  time. I'm like time for what he goes.
• 23:55
  We're going to live our dream. We're going to sell everything
• 23:58
  and we are going to go and live our dream.
• 24:00
  So we did we, we did spend several years preparing for
• 24:04
  this. We went to boat shows and
• 24:06
  training seminars, took a heavy weather training passage and
• 24:09
  then had to sell everything. The home, the barn, the, the
• 24:13
  animals, everything had to go. And we finally just took off the
• 24:17
  dock lines. And that moment that dock line
• 24:20
  was taken off, it was like, OK, this is real.
• 24:23
  Like there's no turning back. This is our home.
• 24:25
  We have nowhere to go. And it was, it was amazing
• 24:29
  because we had spent years sitting there on those docks
• 24:32
  looking out at boats going, I can't wait for the day that we
• 24:34
  live on our boat. Like we just could not wait for
• 24:36
  that day. And that day finally got here.
• 24:38
  We spent some time cruising up and down the East Coast and
• 24:41
  getting to know the boat. And like every day I had to
• 24:44
  pinch myself. There was no regrets, no worries
• 24:46
  at that time, just absolute bliss.
• 24:50
  So if someone is listening right now and they feel like they're
• 24:53
  maybe in their own storm, what would you want them to know?
• 24:57
  What? How would you want to encourage
• 24:58
  them? That when you're in the storm,
• 25:00
  you don't have any perspective on what's going to happen on the
• 25:04
  other side. And you have to have faith that
• 25:07
  there's a reason for it, whether it's to make you stronger, to
• 25:12
  make you change direction. There is some purpose for it,
• 25:15
  and you need to step back and reflect on why you're in the
• 25:21
  storm and then do a lot of praying about where you need to
• 25:24
  go from here. And while you're going to maybe
• 25:27
  be scarred from it like I was, you have to address that too.
• 25:31
  And you have to say it's OK to be afraid, but you need to
• 25:34
  acknowledge it and not let it take hold of you because you
• 25:37
  can't live your life that way. You can't live traumatized by
• 25:41
  one event. And not move forward past it
• 25:44
  because then the rest of your life is going to be compromised,
• 25:47
  you know? What I love about your story,
• 25:48
  too, is fun. You persevered.
• 25:51
  You didn't give up. You kept going.
• 25:53
  And because of that, it's built a resilience in you.
• 25:57
  And it seems like you're stronger now.
• 25:59
  You know what I mean? You have, you know, you're like,
• 26:02
  OK, I lived through that. I can do this.
• 26:05
  And that's one of the things that happened when we walk
• 26:07
  through storms in our life is we realized when the next storm
• 26:11
  comes, we can look back at the last one and see, well, we made
• 26:15
  it through that one. God got us through that one.
• 26:17
  Then he'll get us through this with you.
• 26:18
  Because the Bible says he never leads us nor forsakes us.
• 26:21
  And so that he's an, and also he's a ever present help in
• 26:26
  times of need. And so we just, we just have to
• 26:29
  call on him when we're in those moments.
• 26:31
  And I love that because it sounds like you calling him a
• 26:34
  lot out there. Yeah, and I I think that do not
• 26:38
  fear. Is it like 287 times in the
• 26:41
  Bible is I think the number, but you know, it's you're human and
• 26:46
  you are going to fear. But if you just realize how many
• 26:49
  times it's in the Bible. So you need to keep telling
• 26:52
  yourself, I don't have to be afraid.
• 26:54
  I can be strong, and that's helpful too.
• 26:57
  Yeah, one of them says do not fear, for I am with you.
• 27:00
  God says, you know, do not feel fine with you.
• 27:03
  Allison, thank you so much for sharing this story.
• 27:05
  If someone wants to contact you, do you have a website?
• 27:08
  Because you're also an author. You've written books about your
• 27:11
  experiences out there. I think you have a blog as well
• 27:14
  on your web and website. So people can kind of follow
• 27:18
  along with your journey. If they want to do that, how can
• 27:21
  they reach you? So if they're interested in
• 27:23
  following our journey, my blog website issalemates.org.org.
• 27:29
  And every time we land in a new country on a new island, I take
• 27:33
  photos and I give the history of it and talk about it and share
• 27:36
  our adventures that we have there.
• 27:38
  And then my author website is Allison geeshan.com and all my
• 27:43
  books are on there with links to my books.
• 27:46
  Thank you again for sharing your story.
• 27:48
  I think what stands out to me most about your story is that
• 27:52
  sometimes we think the storm, when we're in the midst of it,
• 27:55
  it can look like God's not there.
• 27:57
  But your story shows I was right there in the middle of it with
• 28:00
  you. He got you through it.
• 28:02
  And if you want to follow Alison's journey or connect with
• 28:05
  her, go to her website. We've got it up on the screen
• 28:08
  there for you. And if the episode encouraged
• 28:10
  you, make sure you're following the show.
• 28:12
  And please leave us a review. It helps these stories reach
• 28:15
  more people. And remember, God is always at
• 28:18
  work in your story.