He had seen God as a stern, judgmental figure, and became very critical of Lutheran churches. Then in Luke 1. 9: 1. Olson encountered another depiction of God: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Olson had known that he was lost – separated from God by his sins. But here he discovered that God wanted to find him.
Ancient Europe (Before 900 BC) Origins of European Nations and Ethno-Groups. Go to European History Interactive Map. Humans Migrate Into Europe (~ 50,000 Years Ago.
That night, Bruce Olson spoke to Jesus, and asked Jesus to satisfy him with the same peace and fulfillment that he had read about in the lives of Jesus’ apostles. He asked Jesus to help him be a person who pleases God. From that moment on, Olson’s life was changed. At the age of 1. 6, Olson attended his first missionary conference, at the church he began to attend after his conversion.
The missionary speaker, a Mr. Rayburn, spoke of his work with the people of New Guinea. Rayburn challenged the congregation to realize that people around the world were starving and dying, separated from Jesus by their sins. Rayburn challenged them to not only put money in the collection plate to help these people, but to go themselves. At that moment, Olson knew that God wanted him to become a missionary to the Indians of South America.
In the fall of 1. Olson enrolled in Penn State, transferring to the University of Minnesota a year later to study linguistics. In the meantime, Olson applied to several missions boards, but was rejected as a missionary candidate. But in early 1. 96. Olson left college, bought a plane ticket to Venezuela. Download Free Number Puzzles Sudoku How To Solve. At the time, he spoke no Spanish, and had only a few dollars in his hand.
Shortly after arriving in Venezuela, Olson heard about the Motilones, a violent stone- age tribe living on the borders of Venezuela and Colombia that had been in the news because of violent clashes with oil company employees, seeking to drill on their land. No one in the outside world knew anything about Motilone culture, their language or their life. Olson felt a strong pull towards making contact with the Motilones.
Work with the Bar. They believed in the existence of a single God, and that evil spirits existed in the world. But they believed that God had rejected them for deceiving Him.
A man named Sacamaydodji had come to them, claiming to be a prophet, saying that he could take them over the horizon to a better land. They left God and followed him, but eventually came to believe that Sacamaydodji had been a false prophet, and regretted walking away from God.
Still, they had a prophecy that a tall man with yellow hair would come with a banana stalk, and that God would come out of the banana stalk. With much difficulty, and after being shot with Motilone arrows, Olson began to live with the Motilone in 1. For one thing, he discovered that the name “Motilone” was a Spanish name for the tribe, meaning “people of short hair.” The Motilone call themselves “Bar. As he grew more and more familiar with the tribe,Olsen got the nickname Bruchko given to him by the Motilone. He began to see ways he could help them.
Olson began his work by befriending the tribe’s medicine woman. Olson realized that for him to bring cures to the people would undermine the traditional authority structure in their culture. During an epidemic of pink eye, he watched the medicine woman chanting over the afflicted, asking God to heal them.
Olson asked her about the cure, and she sighed, saying that she chanted, but God would not help them, since they had deceived God. Olson went out of the house, and asked an old man afflicted with pink eye if he could touch the corners of his eyes. The old man agreed, and Olson smeared some of the old man’s infected tears into his own eyes.
Olson quickly developed pink eye himself, and went to the medicine woman for help. She chanted over him, but the pink eye was not cured. Olson gave her some antibiotic ointment, and asked her to apply the ointment to his eyes while she chanted a new chant – perhaps because he was an outsider, the old chant didn’t work on him.
Within a few days, the pink eye had cleared up. The medicine woman tried the new chant on others of the afflicted, with no results. Then she asked Olson for his “potion,” and sure enough, when she applied the antibiotic and the chant, the pink eye was eradicated. Her success elevated her status in the eyes of the tribe, and cemented Olson’s bond with her. Within the tribe, Olson formed a pact with a young man named Bobarishora, becoming adoptive brothers together. The two worked together, visiting many Bar. One day in 1. 96.
Olson’s pact- brother Bobarishora cut open a banana stalk, and the leaves inside splayed out, like the pages of a book. Olson pointed to his Bible and said, “This is God’s banana stalk!” Olson recounted a Bar. Miraculously, the man was transformed into an ant, and as an ant, he was able to show the other ants how to improve their home. Olson used that story to describe how God became incarnate in Jesus, and “walked our trail.” Olson described the death of Jesus, and his resurrection, and told the Bar.
Olson had difficulty explaining “faith” in the Bar. Olson reminded Bobarishora of one of his first celebrations with the tribe, when he was afraid to climb into one of the high- strung hammocks loved by the Bar. He had wanted to keep one foot on the ground, but Bobarishora had told him that he could only sing if he was fully suspended in the hammock. Olson said, “That is how it is when you follow Jesus, Bobby (Bobarishora). No man can tell you how to walk His trail. Only Jesus can. But to find out you have to tie your hammock strings into Him and be suspended in God.” Two days later, Bobarishora told Olson, “Bruchko, I’ve tied my hammock strings into Jesus. Now I speak a new language.” For the Bar.
Bobarishora spoke of having a new life, suspended in Jesus. Months later, at the tribe’s Festival of the Arrows, a time of pact- making and story- telling, Bobarishora was challenged to a singing competition by an older chief named Adjibacbayra. Climbing into a single hammock, the two men sang alternating lines, and Bobarishora sang about how the Bar. The song lasted over ten hours, but the effect was startling. The entire tribe accepted the song about Jesus. Soon, the song had spread to other Bar.
Within months, virtually the entire Bar. He lives in the jungle on the border of Colombia and Venezuela.