Haiti's First Surf Contest

by Dustin Miller

Since the start of Christian Surfers Dominican Republic, Christian Surfers United States has played an important part in the growth of the ministry. The US has been sending mission teams and support to help us reach local Dominican Surfers for Jesus over the past seven years. The DR ministry has been growing strong and it has become time for the DR to help its neighbours.

I first went to Haiti in November of 2014. There, I visited Surf Haiti, the first organised surf school in the country. It was a short visit to the team there, but we were able to make a plan in order to grow the sport of surfing in the poorest nation of the Americas.

The dream was that we were going to have a team from Christian Surfers DR go to Haiti to help put on the first surf contest in the history of Haiti. The contest would achieve numerous things:

1. It would be the first contest in Haiti
2. It would be a public show of the DR and Haiti working together despite a long history of conflict between the two nations
3. It would allow CSDR to share the gospel of Christ to the growing surf community in Haiti
4. The Dominicans could inspire young Haitian surfers to improve their own skills
5. The Dominicans that work full time at surf schools in the DR could give advice to the young Haitian surf school

On April 29, four surfers from Christian Surfers DR arrived in Jacmel, Haiti, to help make this dream a reality. We had 5 categories of surf competition with over 35 competitors in total. There was also a large crowd on the beach that erupted in applause on each wave caught. We were able to give medals to the top three competitors in each category and share the gospel of Jesus Christ during the award ceremony. We’ve established a great friendship with Surf Haiti and pray that God allows us to continue in this successful partnership. We’re hoping to have a couple of the surfers from Surf Haiti come over to the DR for our annual surf contest in February.

Please pray that the gospel is able to impact this young surf community in Haiti and that we are able to support them as their neighbours. We would love to see Christian Surfers started someday in Jacmel, Haiti.