Riding wave to change

Paul Orellana, a 19-year-old from Costa Mesa with a scruffy beard and serious eyes, describes himself as being “lost” before meeting Newport Beach surfer Artemio Rosas a few months ago.

Standing on the beach near 15th Street with a surfboard on a recent, hazy Sunday morning, Orellana surveyed members of Rosas’ Christianos Surf Team paddling out into the water.

“Since I’ve been surfing, I’ve changed a lot,” Orellana said. “I wasn’t doing so good before. I was into partying, hanging out with the wrong people and doing drugs. I was pretty much lost.”

Rosas, who stole money and sold drugs as a teenager to make his way from Mexico to Newport Beach with dreams of becoming a professional surfer, founded the Christianos Surf Team eight months ago to help Latino kids from low-income families learn how to surf and teach them about the Bible. The Christian team holds church services and sings songs each Sunday on the sand in Newport Beach before heading out into the water with donated wet suits and surfboards.

Orellana, who immigrated to the United States with his family from Guatemala when he was 8, never surfed before he met Rosas three months ago. Now he’s helping the younger kids learn, and Rosas wants him to become one of the leaders of the team as it grows.

“I feel good doing good for other kids who might just be hanging around and don’t have a way to get here and surf on their own,” Rosas said. “I’m committed to helping them and teaching them.”

Rosas started surfing when he was about 7 near Acapulco where he was born.

“It was tough to even find a surfboard,” Rosas remembers. “I had to borrow from friends.”

As a teenager, he dreamed of surfing the waters off Southern California after he saw photographs of surfers in Newport Beach in a magazine.

Rosas stole money from his sister for a bus ticket to Tijuana when he was just 15, with visions of surfing in Orange County.

In Tijuana, he tried to cross the border into the United States illegally with the help of a coyote, but the man bolted when he saw two Border Patrol agents, leaving Rosas to fend for himself miles from civilization along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Rosas managed to escape detection, crossing into the United States, running across a golf course and walking along a busy freeway part of the way, he said.

“For the first time, I got down on my knees after that,” Rosas said. “I thanked God and promised I would do something good, something to glorify Him.”

He went to work selling cocaine for a drug dealer in San Diego, where he earned enough money to take a taxi all the way up the 5 Freeway into Orange County, Rosas said.

Rosas started attending Newport Harbor High School and was a member of the surf team there.

He’s traveled around over the years, surfing professionally and gathering sponsorships from companies like Costa Azul and Bam Bridge Surfboards, but also has spent time working construction in Washington state.

Now Rosas lives in the United States legally and has a work visa.

Living in Newport Beach again, Rosas drives a taxi to support his wife and three children, who live in Mexico.

“While I’m out driving in Santa Ana or Anaheim, I’ll go out and talk to kids I see about surfing,” he said. “Sometimes I knock on doors.”

The team has gathered about 30 members so far, and Rosas hopes to buy more surf boards and attract even more members.

“This is like the hook for kids to get to know God,” said Querubin Pizana, a church leader from the Costa Mesa Spanish Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which Rosas has partnered with to sponsor the team. “[Rosas’] spirituality is very high.”

Twelve-year-old Enid Robles, of Costa Mesa, has been surfing with the team since February. She’s now proficient enough to catch a wave.

“It felt good the first time I did it,” she said.

How To Help

The Christianos Surf Team hopes to raise money to buy more surfboards and expand its services to help low-income Latino kids in Orange County. For more information or to make a donation, visit www.christianossurfteam.org or call Artemio Rosas at (949) 209-7436. Donations are tax deductible.