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.
