Two of my older boys are involved with an organization called, Boarders for Christ. They are a group of young godly men who have devoted their lives to bringing Christ to the skateboarding culture. I couldn't be more proud of them.(I am proud of all my kids, I am just featuring BFC today!) So, I just wanted to share an article my son Jordan wrote for their most recent newsletter.
Written By: Jordan Halland
Driving through California at night is a surreal experience. At first it's just like driving at night in the Pacific Northwest. It's dark, only semi trucks keep you company, and you do whatever you can to stay awake. It's nothing special. Except when you stop for gas at three in the morning and it is 90 degrees out. It confuses your senses. Your eyes tell you it's dark out, the calm and quiet around you whisper night, but your skin is sticky and the hoodie you put on in the van feels totally inappropriate for the weather.
Chris and I picked up our friend Nolan earlier that day. The three of us were going to drive through the night to make it to Oregon in time for our first Demo. I had met Nolan two weeks earlier at a movie. He was originally from Moscow, ID but moved to Orange County to pursue a professional career in skateboarding. As of yet Nolan hadn't made that happen so he has plenty of free time. He is a friend of a couple of BFC guys and Chris had spent a lot of time with him at different events.
Nolan isn't a Christian. We have always made it a priority to be open to take on tour whomever God burdens us to take. Nolan happened to be that guy. We had twenty-eight hours of driving ahead of us and passed the time by talking about skateboarding, California highways, philosophy, but mostly God. He wasn't one of those people that state their beliefs without really understanding what they were. Nolan knew what he knew and why he knew it. He didn't want easy answers. The three of us talked in between sleep and gas stations. Our purpose was not to convert Nolan but to explore where he stood in life.
After a stop in Oregon and Seattle we drove to the middle of Washington to do a series of demos at Creation Festival. This was our fourth time at creation and it has turned into a reunion for BFC. Creation is held at the Gorge Amphitheater, which is about two hours away from both Seattle and Idaho BFC. This year both current and alumni BFC members converged in vendor camping for the event. Stories were told and re-told about past BFC tours. Old BFC guys were updated on the latest happenings. Relationships were picked up were they left off even if years had passed without a word.
Our schedule was fairly grueling. We did three demos every day along with running our booth from 9 am until 11pm. Everyone helped out where they could. Moving ramps, working the booth, or hyping up the crowds during our demos were the majority of the chores shared by BFC. Day one came and the demos were flawless. The guys landed almost everything they tried; the crowd was huge and electric. We had DJ Serch and DJ Orange spinning with the beat of the demo. The guys spoke clear and simple messages that captivated the audience. After the first demo many media outlets including the Seattle Post Intelligencer approached us. If you go to their website and search for Creation Festival you can still read the article and watch the slideshow. All in all it felt like a successful day. Every demo got a little bigger than the last and we kept building momentum. Nolan loved hanging out with the whole crew. He was welcomed in without hesitation.
The Demos would end with the kid ollie. It is the part of the demo where we take volunteers from the audience and line them up like railroad ties on the ground. The demo team then launches themselves over the kids. It is a crowd favorite and a perfect way to end our short shows. Josh Tyvan, Gregg foeller, Nolan, Josh Wing, TJ Mollohan, and Tim Bartle would amaze the awestruck audience with this seemingly dangerous stunt. It seemed that they had gone as far as gravity and the rough ground would allow. Thirteen kids; that was the limit. The crowd didn't seem to mind. Every time they would cheer just as loud as before.
After the third day everyone was feeling pretty worn. This was very evident during the second to last demo. The guys took longer breaks in between tricks, DJ Serch sat out because of fatigue, the message was a short two minutes. Everyone was running on E. To add insult to injury we had one more demo later that night. After the demo ended everyone went to find some shade and recoup before the final demo.
At Six I began barking at people the way a ringmaster would at the circus, calling their attention to the last demo at Creation. We had a huge crowd for the final demo, probably because we had built it up as the best one yet. The earlier demo left me wondering if we would disappoint. The guys were joined by Scott Yamamura and Aaron Fox, both BFC legends from Seattle.
The guys skated with their all. Every one of them pushed themselves beyond their pre-conceived limits. More tricks were landed beyond the landing ramp than I have ever seen at a demo. Above that, the guys were happy. You knew by watching them that they were worshiping God with their skateboarding. The audience was on pins with every trick, cheering louder and clapping harder than most moms at their childs ball game.
Finally we got to the Kid Ollie. We started with 4 kids and quickly progressed to ten, most of the guys did it with little effort. Eleven volunteers were lined up and a few of the guys bowed out. We have a rule that if you aren't 100 percent sure you can make it you shouldn't try it. Then we do twelve and it is just Gregg and Josh left. They both clear it easily but Gregg decided he was too tired to push it much further. Josh clears 13, then 14. He says he wants to try one more so we grab a bfc guy knowing that there is a good chance that he wont make it. Fifteen kids is the most kids ever attempted by a BFC guy. He rolls down our bank ramp and bails halfway over the kids. Corey from BFC Idaho catches his board. He tries it again with the same result. Then a third. Then a fourth. Through all of his attempts he has ripped his shirt and cut his arms, back, and legs on the ground or what we jokingly refer to as the cheese grater. Josh was evidence of this. On his fifth attempt you could see that he was fatigued physically and mentally. The crowd was so animated at this point they moved as one… like they were cheering for their high school team. As he rolled down the bank ramp they got louder. Josh pushed twice then set up, as he crouched down to explode off the ramp he disappeared from site for a brief moment, lost in the sea of faces that had gathered on either side of his path. He suddenly is visible as he attempts to clear the most kids ever ollied in BFC History, 15. As his board touches down on the other side with him firmly on top of it the only sound that could be heard was cheering. The crowd exploded.
This was a great time to end the demo. Josh had just cleared fifteen kids. I could see that he was tired and assumed that he wanted to call it quits. I begin to call over the audience to hear the gospel message around our booth when I see Corey waving his hands frantically.
"He's gonna do one more!" Corey screams. I relay the message to the audience and they run back cheering as they go to see Josh attempt the impossible, a sixteen kid ollie. As they find their spots Nolan begins to hype up the audience. He found his niche in BFC as the hype monster. He can work the crowd into a frenzy quicker than anyone. Josh climbs to the top of the ramp and scans the runway. Seconds later he descends and launches off the kicker. The cheese grater won this round. Then a second and third time he attempts each one ripping his back a little more. But he doesn't look fatigued at all. He wipes the sweat off his brow and goes again and again. By the fifth attempt I began to doubt that it was even possible. On the sixth attempt he fell hard. Josh didn't rise like he had before. Corey and Chris went to check on him asking him if he wanted to continue. Without listening to either of them he begins to run for the bank ramp. The audience was uncontrollable, patting him on the back and head as he runs by them. Josh was one of their friends now. They knew him and wanted more than anything to see him conquer the 16-kid ollie, his personal Mount Everest. The crowd pushed in narrowing the sliver of concrete that was Josh's runway. Nolan stood on the jump ramp raising his hands repeatedly to signal that he wanted the spectators to get rowdy. Dotted through the audience were BFC members anonymously raising their voices taking ownership with Josh. Some of them hadn't been at a BFC demo for years and you could tell through their smiles that they missed it. One of the greatest aspects of BFC is the fact that at any moment any veteran BFC guy can walk back in and pick up right where they left off. It couldn't be any other way. Telling a BFC guy that they he couldn't participate would be like telling your sister that since she missed Thanksgiving she can't participate in Christmas.
My voice was getting hoarse from yelling but even if it was completely clear you wouldn't be able to hear me over the crowd. At the top of the bank ramp stood Josh. He remained slightly hunched over with his hands on his knees, quietly surveying the runway and the launch ramp. Once confident of his ability Josh runs off the flat on top of the deck. Just in time he throws his board down on the bank and pumps as he coasts down the bank ramp. He keeps his right hand on his right knee as he pushes twice. That is all he can get in on the tiny space between the bank ramp and the launch ramp. He crouches coiling like a spring before it shoots outward. Josh approaches the end of the ramp and releases all the energy that he had kept bound in his legs and torso. At this point there is no turning back. When you ollie you can go farther if you follow through than if you bail out mid-air. And if Josh bails now he will be landing on a handful of volunteers. Full commitment is the only option. Josh slides his right foot up to the nose of his board then levels out the tail. This places his feet directly over the bolts that hold the trucks to the deck. He seemed to hang there longer that physics normally allows.
This is a moment I will ever forget. Up until this point I my cynical self was telling me this was just another demo. I prepared myself for the mediocre. I played in my head how the demo would end and how everyone would go about their normal lives. I forgot how God had gifted us with skateboarding because he wanted to use it to tell people of his love.
Josh soared above the first four, then the fifth, sixth and seventh. With every kid he cleared the crowd got louder. He made it past the eleventh and the twelfth. The energy was palatable as he descended like a jumbo jet clearing the thirteenth and the fourteenth. The fifteenth and the sixteenth volunteers were BFC guys from Cheney Washington. Clearing the last of the people is only half the battle. Josh still has to roll away to claim victory. His velocity alone makes landing and rolling away nearly impossible. Josh clears both of the BFC guys setting his board down about 12 inches away from the sixteenth volunteer. He rolls away.
Congratulatory onlookers immediately surround him like he just scored the game winning point. strangers are clamoring to hug Josh. His ankles and knees are throbbing from the countless hard impacts he made. Josh makes his way to one of our ledges to stand on while he shares.
When Josh spoke that night he sounded like an old pastor of a small congregation, full of knowledge and wisdom. Every word was bathed in love. Love for those five-hundred people that attended that last demo. Love for the ministry that he grew up in. Love for the guys that cared for him so much that they prayed for him and with him. Love for Nolan and especially love for the God that regardless of how screwed up any of us were decided He wanted to use us to share with others how much He loved them. Josh was genuine. He shared scripture like poetry. When he asked if there was anyone here that wanted to meet this God that loved them so much, hands went up throughout the now still crowd. Josh thanked them for listening to him and stepped off the ramp that served as a stage.
Later that night we gathered the whole BFC team together to take some group photos. As we shifted in between photos Nolan stood up and said that he needed to say something. He proceeded to say how he felt like all of the BFC guys were his brothers. That if he ran into any of them regardless of how much time had passed that he knew they could pick up where they left off. He was right. I'm always blown away when I run into a old BFC guy. It isn't like running into an acquaintance from high school. There isn't awkwardness at all. It is more like unexpectedly running into your favorite cousin. You know that they still care for you and they know the same is true of you as well. This was a beautiful thing for a young guy like Nolan to say but it was just a ripple for what he said next.
"I'm not a Christian. I have never met a true Christian. But, if I were asked now what a Christian looks like I would say the Boarders for Christ guys. You truly love people and the God you serve."
After he got done saying the most beautiful compliment any of us would ever get, he was dog piled by all of his new brothers. Nolan still isn't a Christian but he knows that there is a God that loves him.
After the photo shoot I went back with everyone else to our booth area, which was swarmed with people. I spent the rest of the night walking around and observing. I saw our guys speaking wisdom into kid's lives. I saw them praying with complete strangers. I was filled with a parent's pride. Regardless of the demo, I was proud of our team. They came together and truly served the few hundred people that were there that night. The guys that a few years ago were high school boys more interested in girls than Jesus, became men of God at Creation. If all of the BFC leadership was gone, that demo would have been just as impacting.
Sometimes being in BFC is as surreal as driving in California at night. By all accounts, it's just life. Everything is normal. Then you step out and realize that you are traveling somewhere completely different. You can either fight it or take off you hoodie and enjoy the weather.
Can you see why I am bawling right now as I read this?
