For Kai Quiroz, the waves of the Pacific Ocean are a constant reminder of how amazing the world is.
“If you ever get the chance to go under a wave, there's this sense of stillness,” he said. “It's so quiet, it's almost like nothing else in the world exists. It just reminds me so much of who God is. When you take a moment to just be with God, you sense he's in control, and that's all that matters.”
Wanting to share that with others, the Riverton man recently created a nonprofit organization called Warrior Waves, which will allow local youth from the Wind River Reservation and surrounding communities the opportunity to travel to California and learn to surf.
It was an idea that sparked 11 years ago when Quiroz first came to Wyoming as part of a mission trip.
“Just seeing these big-eyed kids whose lives seemed very limited to what was in front of them, it spurred this idea in me that, ‘One day I'm going to take you guys to the ocean,’” he said. “‘I'm going to take you guys surfing.’ That's kind of where it all started, was these conversations with some of these kids and them just being excited about the idea of getting to go somewhere new or have an experience that they never thought they would.”
Wanting To Serve Others
Quiroz, 34, grew up in Southern California, and felt that growing up near the beach was a pivotal part of his upbringing. Although he didn’t start surfing until he was older.
“It's hard to describe unless you've done it,” he said of surfing. “It's very freeing. It's away from the world, and there's a little bit of risk in it.
He said he always felt called to the mission field, but originally thought it would be somewhere like Uganda, Africa. Then while he was in college, he took a class called the History of American Indians, which opened his eyes to the injustices committed by the Christian church against Native Americans in the past.
“There’s really just a lot of wrongdoing and hurt and trauma,” he said. “Me being a Christian, it really broke my heart that all this stuff was done by people who claim to follow Jesus. And I was like, ‘That's not who Jesus was.’”
It was after that class he decided he should focus his service closer to home. On JoshuaProject.net, which highlights peoples and places with the least access or response to the gospel, he searched unreached groups in America.
“I was looking to see if there were any unreached Native American tribes, and the Northern Arapaho is the only one listed there,” he said.
When he couldn’t find an established mission organization in Wyoming he could connect with, he found a church in Arkansas that was planning a trip to the Beaver Creek area of the Wind River Reservation and asked if he could tag along.
“I ended up going and just falling in love with the people and community,” he said.
A youth group meets at Foundations for Nations Church. Kai Quiroz volunteers with the group. (Courtesy Photo) 
Quiroz took the family to Disneyland around Christmastime. Pictures are, from left, Preston Gould, Honey Amos, Kyle Leonard Amos, and Kai Quiroz. (Courtesy Photo)
Making The Move
He started returning regularly in the summers following that first trip and was drawn to the culture and traditions he found. After developing so many personal connections, Quiroz decided to move to the area seven years ago.
In his time in the community, he served as the director of teen programming at the Boys and Girls Club of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and currently works as the cultural resource specialist at Riverton Middle School. Seeing a need, he also became a foster parent to four children, eventually assuming guardianship.
It was after his personal dealings with the foster system that Quiroz made the decision to go back to school to earn a master’s degree in social work. But working toward that goal and raising four teenagers on his own isn’t easy.
Along with his job at RMS, he also worked at the Riverton Boys and Girls Club until recently and is a server at the Wind River Casino. He’s in the National Guard as well.
“I think life just kind of got hard for me out here,” he said. “So, I started to pray and seek what was next for me.”
He made the difficult decision to return to California, where he’ll have more family support. Before leaving though he decided it was time to kick off Warrior Waves.
“I'm really going miss this community and I was like, ‘What's a way I can stay connected to the community while living in California?’” he said. “That's when God just brought back this dream of Warrior Waves. I was like, ‘I'm going to do this.’ So, with this being my last summer, probably for a while, in Wyoming, I want this to be my first trip and take some of the kids I really invested in over the years.”
He’s invited 12 teens, and for most it will be the farthest they’ve ventured away from home. The group will attend Hume Lake Christian Camp for a week before hitting the beach to learn to surf. They’ll conclude the trip with a day at Disneyland.
“These are all things that were a really good part of my life,” he said. “I just want them to see that there's so much more than what's in front of them. When they step outside their comfort zone and have new experiences they can have a positive impact in their own community.”
Currently, the group is busy fundraising for the trip.
In the future, Quiroz hopes to get a website up and running to better get the word out about Warrior Waves.
He plans to focus the nonprofit on juniors and seniors in high school, who can then come back and mentor other youth in the community “to have a better mindset and faith.”
He also encourages anyone who’s interested in helping with the nonprofit to reach out, whether on the business side, marketing or fundraising to reach out.
“I just want to get connected to all the right people who feel like they could be an asset to what I'm trying to do,” he said.
