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These locals aren't your average bikers
| Friday, Jun 27 2008 1:43 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Jun 27 2008 1:57 PM
They look menacing in leather, tattoos and piercings as they straddle hulked-up choppers with deafening engines and blindingly polished chrome guts.
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• To learn how you can get involved with the Christian Motorcyclists Association or Soldiers for Jesus, visit: www.cmausa.org or www.soldiersforjesusmc.com.
• To find out about Youth for Christ’s upcoming Ride 4 Youth motorcycle run fundraiser on Oct. 4, call 323-9041.
Photos:
Darren and Tiffany Loyd are members of Soldiers for Jesus, a Christian motorcycle group.
At the Bakersfield Thunder Run earlier this month, Mark Lynch was happily spreading the word of the Christian Motorcyclists Association.
But instead of wreaking havoc and breaking the law, they follow the Bible and go around doing good and winning tough guys’ souls for the Lord.
And today, seven of these Christian biker groups — Black Sheep, Hardcore, Prodigalz, Sabbath Keepers, Set Free Ministries, Soldiers for Jesus and the Christian Motorcyclists Association — will ride out to Kernville and visit Camp Erwin Owen, a juvenile detention and rehabilitation institution for boys 14 to 18, in the hope of touching young lives at the 125-bed facility for the second year in a row.
“In a way, it kind of freaks the kids out ’cause they see us as gangs,” said Dan Brazier, an air conditioning salesman who is president of the local Christian Motorcyclists Association chapter. “And to see a bunch of different people wearing different colors and working in concert, it makes them take notice that it’s something very different.
“They’re used to seeing knives come out at that point,” he said.
Instead of weapons, however, the guys will be bringing souvenir baseball caps, all the fixings for a barbecue and 84 bikes to display for the youths, according to event organizer Mike Tamargo, juvenile justice ministries coordinator for Youth for Christ of Bakersfield, and a member of Soldiers for Jesus.
“Juvenile institutions have been a part of my life because I grew up out of there,” said the 50-year-old father of four and grandfather of three. “From age 11 to 17 years old, I was never home. I just went from reform school to reform school.”
Until the last institution he was in, King of Kings Boys Ranch in San Andreas, which was owned and operated by a Christian man.
“Too many of the institutions just let you go or kicked you out,” he said, “and God never gave up on me and I saw that. There was something very, very solid there.”
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Now Tamargo and many of his biker brothers who share similar experiences are giving back. And juvenile as well as adult tough guys, whether in prison or out, can relate to men who know what it’s like to have been “on the bad side of the law,” he said. “And having changed, they have a lot to offer.”
“We share what God has done in our lives with the prisoners,” said Bill Moss, CMA San Joaquin Valley area representative.
“You sit there and talk to them and next thing their tears are coming down on your arm. People are desperate,” he said. “People change their lives just from our visits.”
During the three hours that they’ll be at Camp Owen, Tamargo said, the bikers will eat with the boys, talk wheels with them as they come up for a close look at the motorcycles, and share their personal testimonies.
Last year, he said, 63 boys — half the facility’s bed count — responded to what he called “the challenge:” an altar call to receive salvation through Christ and turn their lives around. The staff was “overwhelmed,” Tamargo said.
“I didn’t even have a chance to ask to come back and we were being asked to come back again this year.”
The bikers themselves were moved so much that this year’s participants are about twice as many as last year’s.
'FILLING IN THE GAP'
“The traditional biker icon kind of guy, with the leather, the beard and that kind of stuff, is typically the kind of guy who would not darken the doors of a church and probably not be accepted anyway, so we’re sort of filling in the gap there,” said John Hoppstetter, Bay Area and Central Coast representative for CMA.
“Bikers have gotten a bad rap and that’s the reason we organize and do what we do, to improve the image of motorcyclists,” he said. “And we do it by not being outlaws and mainly by proclaiming the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.”
Besides participating in prison ministries, Hoppstetter said, Christian bikers help their communities through charity motorcycle runs and other fundraisers, by feeding the hungry and by meeting one another’s spiritual needs — something Soldiers for Jesus and CMA did by organizing Sunday worship at the Bakersfield Thunder Run, an annual custom motorcycle and hot-rod showcase event held at the Kern County Fairgrounds Father’s Day weekend.
“Our mission is to be used in the motorcycle community as a servant or as a helper and we do that in the hope that we will be able to share the love of Jesus as we do it,” Hoppstetter said.
As for what the seven Christian biker groups might be able to accomplish at Camp Owen today, Tamargo’s wish is simple: “Our hopes are that the boys can see that they can change the direction they’re going, and that they can do this through Christ.”