Pursuing My Purpose in Life
As told by Olaf Olson
ONE evening in 1932 when I was going to my room in a boardinghouse I stopped to visit with a friend. As we were talking I picked up a booklet entitled “Hell” that was lying on his dresser. He asked me if I would like to read it, so I took it with me. I wanted to know what it had to say about that place. Later, after a man had come to the barbershop wanting to trade some of the same kind of booklets for a haircut, I sent to the Society for more of the books; it was just what I was looking for. One day my aunt, a devout Lutheran, came over to see what this was all about, but I was able to defend with the Bible the things I had learned. And when I went to visit the home preacher to ask him some questions, I was convinced more than ever that they were not teaching the truth.
Not knowing any congregation of Jehovah’s witnesses, I had no chance to get instructions, but I started out to preach the best I knew how. It was not long before I called at a door where the lady asked how I happened to be working in her territory. “Territory?” I said. “Lady, all I am trying to do is find somebody that wants to read these books.” The sister suggested that I arrange to go to the meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses in St. Paul, Minnesota, which was a hundred miles away, to get instructions; so I went.
At the meeting I met two pioneers who suggested that I fill out a pioneer application and ask the Society for territory near my home. In addition to doing that I fixed up my car so I could sleep in it when working rural territory. Arriving home, I found that my assignment from the Society and literature supplies had already arrived; so I was ready to pursue my purpose in life as a pioneer. That was in 1933, but not until August 9, 1934, did I have the opportunity to be baptized. Two days after my baptism I joined company with two young brothers in Michigan, and that fall we worked our way south to the Gulf of Mexico, witnessing in Wisconsin, Kentucky, Mississippi and then in Louisiana. We had a grand time.
In the spring I was back in upper Michigan, and that summer I was arrested for the first time in my life—for preaching God’s Word. I lost the case and had to serve ten days in the county jail. I enjoyed the rest, and took advantage of the time to read and preach.
The next year as I began to move south, notice was received of an assembly in New Jersey; so I picked up some friends in Chicago and we made the trip together. From there I went on to Alabama, Kentucky and then to Evansville, Indiana. There was plenty of territory to cover and I was willing to serve.
In 1937, at the convention in Columbus, Ohio, I heard about the “flying squad.” I was ready to go, but I hoped the Society would assign me to a city in Kentucky, since I had only summer clothes. Instead, the assignment came for Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When I arrived in my new assignment in November the snow was flying—and me with only summer clothes. But Jehovah has promised that if we seek first the interests of his kingdom, he will see that we have the necessities of life, and the very day after my arrival the good sister where I parked my trailer took me to a store and bought everything I needed in warm winter clothes. In January it got so bitter cold that I had to take the trailer and park it in the street in my territory so I could go warm up in it now and then when the people would not let me in. The quota was 150 hours of field service a month with the phonograph, so I could not afford to miss a day. I stayed in Milwaukee about two years; then in 1939 my assignment was changed to Chicago.
In 1940, a year of intense persecution, I was a regular pioneer in Bloomington, Illinois. Mob violence broke out everywhere. The people went mad; everybody saw red or fifth columnists. At that time I had part in circulating a petition for freedom, along with the booklet Judge Rutherford Uncovers Fifth Column. Besides that, I fought three months in court to establish the right to distribute Bible literature on the streets. In a short time I was sent to Lake Forest, Illinois, where the fight for freedom of worship continued. Not everyone appreciated the Kingdom message, and when someone complained the police would pick me up, but most of the time they took me back to the territory. I stayed there until the territory had been covered four times, and then took up another assignment.
It was in 1942 that I heard of Gilead School, and by the fall term in 1943 I was there as a member of the second class, following the Minneapolis assembly. Going to school with such a large group of brothers and sisters was like living in a new world.
After graduation from Gilead, while waiting for a visa for Colombia, I was sent to Chicago to witness. In July, 1945, the Society called me to Brooklyn to work until December, when all my papers were ready for me to travel. Nobody there seemed to know very much about Colombia, but missionaries already working in the country did provide some helpful information.
On December 20, 1945, I arrived in Bogotá, Colombia, and a room was waiting for me in the missionary home. The very next day I went along with one of the missionaries to learn how to preach to the Colombians in Spanish. The day after that I worked alone. At first all I could do was show the book to the people, tell them the price and let them look at it, and many of them accepted the literature. I found that the best way to learn the language was to be with people who did not understand English. Each day as I listened to them I could understand a little more. The first year was the hardest, but then I was able to make more back-calls and conduct home Bible studies. After two years I really began to feel at home in my assignment. If I had kept thinking about the country I had left, I would not have been happy, but I made up my mind to live both bodily and mentally in Colombia, to make friends with the brothers and sisters in the truth there, to keep my life filled with the ministry, and my assignment soon became home to me.
After sixteen months in Bogotá I was sent to Barranquilla on the northern coast, May 4, 1947. A few missionaries were here before I arrived and there were already four publishers. By September of the next year, when we moved to another home in the center of town, we had thirty publishers. Before long we had to move to a house that had a hall large enough to accommodate two hundred persons. Even this became too small, so another unit was started. The increase continued, and soon two walls had to be removed for more space and a third unit was organized. We have had many assemblies here in Barranquilla and they have contributed much to the growth of the work. Hence, by January, 1959, there were seven units here, with a total of more than five hundred publishers, and plans to begin two new units soon. There are many of Jehovah’s “sheep” here, and we are grateful that he sent us to help to find and feed them.
Yes, it takes work, but it is worth it and is an incomparable blessing to see people who never had a Bible before learn about God and his purposes and make a dedication to him and then start out to teach others about it, perhaps going on to privileges of service as a pioneer, special pioneer and then looking ahead to Gilead.
Jehovah has provided well for us, so that we are able to devote all our time and effort to the field ministry, making backcalls, conducting home Bible studies, training new publishers, organizing congregations, assisting the brothers and seeing that the work moves ahead. It is a joy to see theocratic expansion in Colombia, with seventeen missionaries, one hundred and twenty local pioneers, and twenty-nine congregations, with a total of over a thousand publishers.
We rejoice, too, as others come to Colombia to join us in preaching here where the need is still great. Ten of the thirteen million population are still waiting to hear the good news of Jehovah’s kingdom. Would you like to be among those coming to tell them?