When I am weak, then I am strong.

    "I looked back at Bobby, who was steering the boat and smiled. How strange that I had gotten to this place, that I felt the way I did about these people. It was God who had brought me. I never would have come myself. And even if I had wanted to, I could never have made it past all the problems, past the loneliness, past the danger. In fact I never would have left my home in Minneapolis if I had not had His powerful, determined Presence inside me." - Bruce Olson, Bruchko
    As a boy, Bruce Olson was the definition of a weakling. He had contracted bronchitis as a young child and never regained full strength. His body was tall, lanky, and uncoordinated. His piers nicknamed him "bug-eyes" and "four-eyes" because of his thick glasses. His favorite place to be was alone in his room surrounded by books. And he had only one friend, Kent Lagne.
    When he was fourteen years old, he asked the question, "Who is my God?" He began reading his Bible in search of an answer and came across a verse that "sent  electricity jingling through [his] body". "For the son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." He remembered a verse in Romans that said, "If thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him [Christ] from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
    He couldn't believe salvation was as easy as believing. He talked with God, praying that he would be changed and made new. Bruce says, "I knew that I was being saved. I felt miserable and broken, and sick of myself. But I also realized a peace coming into me. It wasn't something dead and passive, that peace. It wasn't just a silence ending the war inside me. It was alive, and it was making me alive. I could feel that I was going to be able to like myself. And I knew that I didn't ever want that peace, that stillness to go away."
    God began to give Bruce a hunger for the scriptures. He attended church with his friend Kent  and began to grow in spiritual knowledge. One week the church had a Missions Conference. Bruce remembered a missionary who spoke, "Jesus wants more of you. He wants more than your lip service to the great cause for missions. It's your responsibility to take the Gospel of Christ to these people. Otherwise their blood will be required of you." After hearing this Bruce was anything but attracted to missions. He prayed, "Listen, God, these missionaries are ridiculous. They wear tennis shoes in the pulpit. Their prayer letters aren't even written in English. And their theology. They're always talking about hell and damnation. Where is their love for the people they're living among? They're failures, Lord. They can't make it in normal life, so they go off to be missionaries.... But I can succeed here, Father. Everyone agrees. Why should I have to work with naked, starving people?.... Why can't I be your servant here in Minneapolis?"
    Bruce Olson had a life of success ahead of him. He was on his way to becoming a professor of languages, get a Ph. D in philology. But something inside of him said, "That isn't what God wants you to do."
    Bruce Olson was called to missions.
    At nineteen years old, Bruce Olson left home against his parents' wishes and travelled to South America. He has lived with the Motilone Indians since 1961. He has reduced their language into writing, translated several New Testament books into the Motilone language, taught the Motilones health measures, agricultural techniques, and the value of preserving their cultural heritage. His efforts have won him the personal friendship of five presidents of Colombia, appearances before the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and many honors for his contribution to the medical and social wellbeing of the Motilone Indians.
    Bruce Olson's life is a testimony to the weak. "How strange that I had gotten to this place, that I felt the way I did about these people. It was God who had brought me. I never would have come myself. And even if I had wanted to, I could never have made it past all the problems, past the loneliness, past the danger. In fact I never would have left my home in Minneapolis if I had not had His powerful, determined Presence inside me."
    Here, I find myself in Uganda serving and teaching at Zana Community Christian School. Three weeks in and I am becoming weary. As time goes on, the days grow longer and the children all the more difficult... and I am reminded that I am weak.
    Like Bruce Olson, I find it strange that I am here in this place, that I love these people the way I do. Although I wanted to come, I could have never made it on my own. Past the problems, past the loneliness, past the danger. I am here only because of His powerful, determined Presence inside me.

- Mary Grace