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Bruce Olson (b. November 10, 1941) is a Scandinavian American Christian missionary who is best known for his pioneering work in bringing Christianity to the Motilone Indians of Colombia and Venezuela. His story is told in his autobiographies ''Bruchko'' and ''Bruchko and the Motilone Miracle''. ==Early life== Bruce Olson was born in 1941 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the younger of two sons of Marcus and Inga Olson. His father was an investment banker, and his mother was a socialite. Gifted in languages, at an early age Olson learned Greek and Latin. When Olson was 14 years old, he experienced Christian conversion, the experience of being born again, while reading the New Testament. He had seen God as a stern, judgmental figure, and became very critical of Lutheran churches. Then in Luke 19:10, 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. 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 16, 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 1959, 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 1961, at the age of 19, and over the objections of his parents, Olson left college, bought a plane ticket to Venezuela. 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bruce Olson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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