Celebrating 45 Years of Christian Surfers

CS International Conference

By 1992, as news of other Christian Surfer groups tricked in via letters and the occasional visitor from around the globe, we began to entertain the idea that perhaps God wanted us to reach the whole surfing world. This seemed remotely possible in English-speaking, Christian or even post-Christian surfing world, but outside of that we were struggling. PLaces like Morocco, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Central America were all opening up to surfing in the 80’s and early 90’s. But these were pre-internet days when international communication and travel were expensive. Not only that, we had no cross-cultural experience, no language skills, no missionary-sending capacity, no resources. In short, no chance!

One cold May morning in 1991 during a visit to CSNZ, an excited Marc Dryer pressed me to set a date for an international conference. We barely coped with a national one! To rally surfers of the world we figured the early season in the mecca of surfing - the North Shore of Oahu would be our best shot. The problem, however, was that there was no Christian Surfers in Hawaii. In fact, we didn’t even know anyone in Hawaii!!

Kevin Hemingway & Steven

We then learnt of a new surf mission arm of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) called Surfers for Missions International (SFMI) and they had contacts in Hawaii. Rather than partner with YWAM for hosting the conference, we chose to partner with the local North Shore Christian Fellowship church they put us in touch with.

I hand wrote invitations on Australian eucalyptus leaves and mailed them with an accompanying letter to all our global contacts. Mail was slow and tedious, yet, one by one every country responded positively. We arrived at the rustic Salvation Army Camp in Homelani on Mokuleia coastline on October 25, 1993 with some 40 delegates from seven nations. As Told by Brett Davis

Arakawa Family