"Groundswell - The CS Story" Extract: "Jesus Pro Go Home"
I pulled the plywood sign off a large eucalypt just
a kilometre in from the highway. Along a bit there was another: 'No
contests here!' Then another: '&*#@ off Jesus'.
Apparently our attempts to work in with the Bendalong locals at their
secluded beachbreak merely gave them time to galvanise a plan against
our moving the Jesus Pro Am from the city beaches of Sydney to the
remote South Coast. It had all come about one meeting when the Pro Am
seemed to be dying and we drew inspiration from the community festival
feel observed in the NZ Jesus Easter Surf Classic. We had taken a huge
risk and step of faith booking out the entire camping ground of 150 beds
and made the 'Jesus' into a camp/contest for the weekend.
"Why don't you guys hold the contest somewhere else?" asked the
sandy-haired grommet in the general store. "We're gonna surf right
through your contest site,' threatened the weather-beaten local with
missing teeth. "How many litres of milk will you need in the morning?"
asked the ecstatic shop owner. "They'll get over it," encouraged the
Manyana Junior Boardriders secretary.
So many different reactions were going down that Friday afternoon. Our
dedicated prayer team were in overdrive praying to divert a conflict.
Nighttime provided cover for some locals to get close enough to start
pitching rocks at the team. Kiama leader Phil Imisides was the first
casualty. Suddenly he clutched the side of his head and blood seeped
through his fingers.
Tim Oyston, of Wollongong remembers...
"It was getting ridiculous with more rocks being thrown and our
generator being tampered with. We so wanted this to be a positive event
for everyone, locals included, and it felt like there was an attack not
just physically but spiritually as well to discourage the whole team.
Eventually, we had no choice but to ring the police who flushed out a
heap of teens from the scrub. The police knew the culprits and sent them
home with a warning. We went back to work. It sort of felt like
Nehemiah building the wall as we worked and stayed on watch for further
sabotage!"
Saturday March 12, 1993: The surf was firing and our new 'community'
seemed to be working well. Rusty Moran and the Cronulla team were going
from cabin to cabin with breakfast treats and plunger coffee. On the
beach, the combined local churches provided coffee and cake. "I can't
believe I'm sitting on a chair, drinking real coffee out of a mug!" said
one local mum in the shade of the hospitality tent as she watched her
son surf in the Juniors. Surrounding parents nodded in agreement.
No negative locals appeared to disturb the contest area. We assisted the
community with its campaign to protest the building of a nearby
'megatip' refuse centre and a petition was circulated. Meal vouchers
were used to claim lunch and that night everyone met in the Manyana
Community Hall for dinner, a surf movie and a short gospel challenge.
Wayne made a good call that night: "The local community won't judge us
by how good our contest was, but by how clean the place is afterwards."
We painstakingly cleaned every bit of the beach and track. It was a
totally new benchmark, not only for the Jesus Pro Am but for any surf
contest. We had made a breakthrough with the local community and with
the surfers by combining evangelism, social action, community,
servanthood and professionalism. Surely next year would be even better!
It wasn't.
Friday April 23, 1994: "It's gone, it's all gone!" yelled our soaked
equipment coordinator Mark 'Bruiser' Edwards from Wollongong. A howling
40-knot southerly had hit at midnight and taken away two storeys of
scaffold, all our banners and some tents.
As dawn came, a 5m southerly swell rendered the contest site totally out
of control. There was a mad thirty-minute scramble to relocate. Our
grand set up was replaced with a couple of pitiful tents and an
assortment of ragged judging seats.
Then it got worse. There were protest signs and graffiti everywhere:
'Jesus Go Home' even down to the amenity block that had been
spray-painted overnight at our new location.
Then it got worse. The waves were huge. Surfers got washed out to sea.
One guy nearly drowned. Maroubra leader Adam Volkerts got hung up on a
rocky outcrop by his legrope. Rain bucketed down. Antagonistic locals
jeered. High tides washed through the contest tent. The team was
stretched.
Then it got worse. In the midst of it all, an ABC TV film crew was
shooting a segment for 'Compass', the national religious program. When
one surfer was injured, they even asked if I would repeat my run down
the beach with a first aid kit so they could re-shoot it! I was
convinced the whole country was going to see us at our worst.
The winner was a very deserving young emerging pro, Mick Lowe, who was
stoked to receive his first place prize of return airfares to Hawaii.
Imagine our despair when he contacted the sponsor to collect his prize
and they said they knew nothing about it. The employee we had dealt with
had quit a month earlier. Mick and his parents were great about the
fiasco and said not to worry about it, but we all decided to dig in and
pay for his prize ourselves.
It was one disaster after another.
But at the presentation night, locals got up and announced how amazed
they were at how the team worked together. The Manyana Junior Club
supported us more than ever. The ABC program turned out fine. Mick Lowe
and his family were appreciative of CS and have been supportive ever
since. God showed us that our unity and service were more important than
any slick contest site. In an image-conscious surfing scene, it would
be a lesson we would keep learning.
