Bruchko: The Astonishing True Story of a 19-Year-Old American, His Capture by the Motilone Indians and His Adventures in Christianizing the Stone Age Tribe

“I swear, for this cross I’ll kill you.”

Humberto Abril's threat at the outset of Bruchko foreshadows Bobby's eventual death and mirrors Olson's final revelation. Abril employs the symbol of the cross to justify his violence, a perversion of the religion Olson introduces early in the narrative to highlight the harmful and misguided interpretations of Christianity that oppose his mission.

“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.”

This quote from Olson’s recollections as he and Bobby journey toward the Barí settlements exemplifies his faith in the power of God. By adhering to what he believes to be God's commands, Olson finds himself in a situation vastly different from what he could have envisioned in his youth, yet one that brings him contentment now. He underscores the abnormal nature of his life among the Barí by revisiting his childhood shortly after this quote, highlighting the stark contrast between his adult experiences and his upbringing in Minnesota.

“And then 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 was alive, and it was making me alive. I felt 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. Jesus was there. I didn’t have to worry about the Lutheran God or the Christian God or anyone else’s God. They weren’t my problem. Jesus was my God my personal God. And I had just talked with him.”

Olson’s depiction of his youthful spiritual experience is pivotal to the rest of the narrative. His discovery of faith and the sense that it resolves his inner struggles become the primary motivators for his missionary endeavors, as he assumes that others will also find fulfillment through Christianity.