Beginnings

This is God’s Camp. It is a tender tree of God’s planting.

Ivan E. Olsen

Ivan E. Olsen had a lot on his mind during the autumn of 1937.

Having been hired a year earlier as pastor of the newly-formed Berean Fundamental Church of North Platte, Nebraska, he already had established a vigorous routine. Even though his church had fewer than 50 members and North Platte had fewer than 15,000 inhabitants, Olsen had big ideas. He had revival meetings to organize, sermons to prepare, people to visit, workers to recruit and a hundred other things to do, including preparing for his own wedding.

Even with all that on his agenda, something else kept burning in his heart. He wanted to start a Bible camp. It kept perking in his mind, keeping him restless, even after he married Alice Gustafson in November.

Rev. Olsen had grown up on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where he worked in a pool hall before accepting Jesus Christ as his savior as a teenager. He attended Bible college in Denver, where he began to discover methods of reaching people for Christ. He was impressed by what he had read about the Winona Lake, Indiana, and Gull Lake, Michigan, conference grounds and was convinced that God wanted him to start something similar in west central Nebraska.

“My husband was burdened all winter,” recalled Alice. “He said ‘We need a Bible camp.’ I don’t know if there were any Bible camps in Nebraska; we didn’t know of any at the time.”

Finally, “when I couldn’t carry the burden alone any longer,” Ivan decided to share it with some trusted friends. He mailed one of the elders of his church, Hugh Clark, and asked him to pray. Neither had ever seen a Bible camp, but both believed that the young people of Nebraska and the surrounding region needed the opportunity.

Precisely who made Olsen’s “inner circle” at first is unclear. It is almost certain that Olsen called Clark and another friend, Nick Janzen, a Mennonite wheat farmer who pastored churches in the small communities of Madrid and Roscoe, to join him and Alice for a prayer meeting on Tuesday, March 15, 1938. There are written references by Ivan Olsen that at least one more man (possibly John Goodmanson, an elder in the Berean Fundamental Church at North Platte) may have been in the original prayer meeting, but Alice Olsen, in a March 1997 interview, said that it was only four people — herself, Rev. Olsen, Clark and Janzen. Their meeting place also is uncertain. It was likely at 309 W. 7th Street in North Platte, but possibly in Olsen’s small office at the Berean Church at 202 W. 8th St. The uncertainty is due to the fact that apparently no one bothered to write down anything at the time. No written record of the March 15 meeting is known to exist, but the Olsens referred to that date verbally and in writing so often throughout their lives that its accuracy is almost certain.

Alice Olsen placed the original prayer meeting in the former location, the home of Nellie Lantz, a widow who lived with her grandson. Nellie was convinced of the need for a solid Bible-preaching church in the community. She let the Olsens live rent-free for nine years at her house, located about a block from the church building.

“We met for this prayer meeting and asked God to direct us, in first of all, getting a place to have the camp, and a date to have the camp,” said Alice. “The prayer meeting was very significant, because there were specific things that Rev. Olsen said: ‘We want a place where young folks can hear the gospel and respond to the gospel, and a place where they can be taught the word of God and be challenged to give their lives to serve the Lord.’ “

The next month, on April 26, 1938, the group met again, with several new members attending, and began acting as a board of directors. At that meeting, Hugh Clark began keeping handwritten notes, a practice he would continue for all meetings of the board and its various committees until 1949, when the secretary job fell to others.

The first thing on the agenda was naming the camp. Clark moved for the use of “Maranatha Bible Camp.” Janzen seconded the motion, and it was approved. (No one knew at the time that a camp using the Maranatha name had been launched in Michigan the previous year.) They moved right into the election of officers and the setting of fees.

It was obvious that the Olsens and their inner circle, plus friends from other area churches, were of one heart and mind in this matter. And so, with a Holy Spirit-sized burr under his saddle, and with encouragement from his wife and a group of friends from several area churches, a 23-year-old pastor started Maranatha Bible Camp. He had no clear idea of how it would work; he just knew it needed to be done. The details could be worked out later. Doing what God wanted him to do — that was the main thing.

Once Olsen reached a decision about almost any topic, any course of action, it typically became a consuming passion in his life, at least for a short amount of time. But this passion was bigger than any other that would come along for Rev. Ivan E. Olsen, and it would never die out.

“More than ever, Ivan wanted to make whatever preparations were needed to provide a place that was set apart,” said his wife. “He envisioned a place where folks could get away from the distractions of the everyday world and hear the wonderful plan that God had for their lives.”

The first campsite was a cottonwood grove along the Platte River on the property of Ralph Talbot, about six miles southeast of North Platte. At least 33 campers (30 of them were registered fulltime) and 13 adult leaders gathered from Monday, June 6, through Monday, June 13, 1938.

“Devotions, Bible study, music, lectures and sports will fill the campers’ days,” said a story in the June 7, 1938, North Platte Daily Bulletin. “A nurse will be on the camp grounds to render first aid if necessary.” Even so, two campers had to go home due to illness before the week was out.

The first session was a campfire service the night of Monday, June 6. At least 50 people gathered around the large fire. Hazel Johnson, the Camp nurse and superintendent of women, was so impressed that she decided to keep a record of what God would accomplish during the week. “On the opening evening of camp many guests from North Platte and neighboring towns were present,” she wrote. “A huge camp fire lighted up the scene, revealing the camp with its tents, cook shack, trees, benches, etc. Rev. Ivan E. Olsen led in the opening meeting. As the fading twilight in the west lent beauty to the scene, we believe that God in heaven was pleased as He looked down upon the happy hearts bowed in reverence to Him.

“Choruses were sung, testimonies given, and camp officers introduced: the get-acquainted-service will long be remembered. The closing chorus expressed the thought of every heart:

Just one day nearer home, when shadows of the night descend.

Just one day less to roam, when fading twilight colors blend.

Beneath that starry dome, I rest beside my Guide and Friend.

With each day’s tramping, nightly camping; one day nearer home.”

The campers (they were teenagers for the most part, although a few were in their 20s) stayed in a variety of borrowed tents and sang along every morning as Ivan’s younger brother, Lloyd Olsen, led music to the accompaniment of an old upright piano that had been loaded onto Janzen’s flatbed truck. Speakers also used the truck bed as a platform. Campers heard Rev. Merle Lefever of the First Baptist Church in Maxwell challenge them about getting involved in missions work worldwide. They took classes on prophecy (taught by Janzen) and on errors in religious systems (taught by Lloyd Olsen).

When the weather was clear, they enjoyed meals and teaching sessions on picnic tables under the cottonwoods. The meals were cooked in a shack framed with 2x4s and covered with canvas and cardboard. The campers endured rain at least once every day that week. When it rained, they had their meals and meetings in a funeral tent borrowed from Maloney, Cox & Kuhns Morticians, who said they would be out to get it if they needed it, but it was a slow week for deaths in North Platte; Maloney, Cox & Kuhns had no customers to bury while Maranatha was using the tent.

It was a good week for eternal life. Olsen and his team envisioned a weeklong revival service in the wilderness, and to that end, they recruited speakers, including Rev. W.C. Anderson of the Free Mission Church in Gothenburg, and Rev. Clifton L. Fowler, president of Denver Bible Institute, a mentor of Rev. Olsen. It was Fowler who originally suggested that Olsen use the name “Maranatha,” based on 1 Corinthians 16:22.

On Saturday, many campers and adults rode into town on Janzen’s truck and held a street meeting, attracting a large crowd with trumpet and organ music. “Several were saved then and there on the street corner,” reads the account of the First Annual Session.

There were many salvation decisions among the campers as well, and the Camp leadership gave thanks to God for the encouraging results. On Sunday, Rev. Olsen held a baptismal service in the Platte River for 20 candidates (including his brother Lloyd, whose name was omitted from the original roll of campers and staff, but was immortalized in Hazel Johnson’s recap as the best flapjack eater in the Camp). Janzen and Lefever assisted with the baptismal service.

Swimming was a popular pastime during the first week of Camp (the campers were driven to a sandpit a short distance away where Ivan Olsen served as lifeguard), but baseball proved to be the biggest hit. The married men defeated the unmarried men 2-1 and the married women bested the unmarried women 18-6. The losers demanded rematches the next summer, and a longstanding Camp tradition was born.

It didn’t take long for the first Camp pranks to occur. “Ask Charlie (Smith) if it pays to run away from doing dishes!” reads an entry in Hazel Johnson’s recap, which also chronicles Wyatt Beauchamp’s embarrassing pratfall when he was caught trying to snitch some food.

Lyle Carper, an elder in the North Platte Berean Church, had installed crude water pumps and outhouses at the site. Determined to keep things in order, he prowled to “rid the camp ground of nightly disturbances.”

Despite sunburns, windstorms and piles of soggy bedding, the First Annual Encampment was judged a resounding success, and the leaders eagerly made plans for the following year. Feeling a bit crowded on the Talbot place, they decided to move the whole enterprise a few miles east to a lovely grove of elm trees along the Platte River. The site, owned by Harold Bockus, was just north of the U.S. Post Office at the now-defunct settlement of Bignell.

Attendance increased to 44 campers in 1939 and to 76 in 1941 at the Bignell site. By now, it was time to stop borrowing equipment each year, so Olsen organized his first Maranatha fundraiser and Hugh Clark used the proceeds to buy canvas and lumber for long, narrow dormitory tents. Eventually, volunteers built other outbuildings (on skids, since they were using borrowed land). Much of the work was done in the spring of 1940, when men from North Platte and Maxwell took Janzen’s flatbed truck on two trips to Colorado to obtain cheap “slab” lumber to build a 14-by-72-foot dining room and kitchen.

“Inclement weather does not interfere,” claimed the 1941 brochure. Generally, that was true, although heavy thunderstorms sometimes sent unwelcome streams of water inside the tents.

Theodore Epp, director of the Back to the Bible Broadcast in Lincoln, was introduced to Maranatha in May 1940 and was a speaker at Camp that summer. He became a board member and a 35-year relationship was launched. In 1941, Maranatha offered two programs (one for children and one for teens) and attendance jumped dramatically to 276 as “The Musical Family” — Rev. Sam Becker, along with his wife Ella and preschool-age daughter Darlene — played the guitar and marimba, gave object lessons and told stories. The Beckers would direct the Children’s Camp for 15 years. Ernest Lott, who would be closely involved with Maranatha until his death more than 50 years later, began serving as director of music in 1943.

Maranatha Bible Camp was expanding, both in numbers and influence. During the early 1940s, more than 25 different church denominations were represented at Maranatha. The economy was starting to recover from the iron grip of the Great Depression, farmers in the area were feeling optimistic; many were providing chickens and garden vegetables for the Camp. More and more people were volunteering to work during the summer encampments. The work was hard, but Maranatha seemed to be settling into a happy routine. Still, Olsen was restless. He knew that things couldn’t go on much longer as they were.