Alumnus of the Year Award Winners Share Seminary Ties and Passion for the Missions

Volume 22 No 1 | Winter 2008-2009

Joel Stolte is 2008 CAS Alumnus of the Year

Joel Stolte C’59 was selected as the College of Arts & Sciences Alumnus of the Year for 2008. For more than four decades, Stolte and his wife Nancy have ministered with Wycliffe International in South America, translating God’s Word into the language of the Waimaha people in the jungles of the Rio Vaupes region of Columbia.

After graduating from Bethel, Stolte spent one year at Bethel Seminary before completing his M.Div. at Fuller Seminary in California. He also finished graduate studies in linguistics at the University of Oklahoma and taught in Wycliffe’s Summer Institute of Linguistics there as well as at the University of North Dakota.

When the Stoltes first encountered the Waimaha, their language had no written form. Living alongside the tribe, the Stoltes started a school; initiated community development projects in agriculture, animal husbandry, and carpentry; sponsored young men to attend Bible institute; and saw many Waimaha turn from their animistic traditions to accept the good news of Jesus Christ. They spent at least half of each year in the jungle, alternately developing training materials at Loma-linda, Wycliffe’s regional center in the central plains.

Stolte served as Wycliffe’s director of operations in Columbia for two terms fraught with peril as insurgents targeted missionaries for kidnapping and murder; one colleague was martyred. Eventually, Wycliffe evacuated nearly 300 staff from Lomalinda and relocated them to safer headquarters in the capital city of Bogóta.

Joel and Nancy have continued working with and mentoring the Waimaha, and this year rejoiced in the completion of the Waimaha New Testament. Most of the Old Testament has now been translated into draft form, and several multi-media projects have been produced, including dubbing the Jesus film into Waimaha. The Stoltes, who have three grown children (two of whom are Bethel graduates) and 11 grandchildren, reside in Bogóta, Columbia.

Melvin Swanson Honored as 2008 Bethel Seminary Alumnus of the Year

Melvin Swanson (C’41, S’44) was chosen as Bethel Seminary’s 2008 Alumnus of the Year. Just a few years after his graduation from Bethel Seminary in 1944, Swanson and his first wife, Henrietta, followed their heart for missions to Africa, where Swanson worked within both the local church and segregated churches in outreach/evangelism, preaching, shepherding, and visitation. He served as principal of several schools, including Durban Bible College in South Africa, Florence Christian Academy in Swaziland, and Evangelical Teachers Training College in South Africa.

During the Swansons’ ministry in Africa, Henrietta tragically died while giving birth to their first child. Swanson later married Betty, and together they had four more children.

After 19 years of overseas service, they returned to the U.S. to care for ailing family members. Swanson continued his lifetime of missions work by founding Life Abundant Ministries, an outreach to prisoners, in 1977. At age 85, he continues his active service with this organization.

At a June luncheon honoring Swanson, he commended Bethel for the excellence of its dedicated faculty who have had a major impact on students throughout the years, noting that “Bethel Seminary trained me to serve, and I praise God for His divine enabling through Bethel’s staff some 60 years ago.”   

Past Bethel Seminary Alumni of the Year

2008    Melvin Swanson, C’41, S’44
2007    Janice Raymond, S’99
2006    Bob Merritt, S’83
2005    Edward Nelson, C’37, S’39
2004    Clifford V. Anderson, S’55
2003    Richard Young, S’66
2002    Robert Featherstone, S’55
2001    Paul Douglas Johnson, C’77, S’97
2000    Alfred Babington-Johnson, S’84
1999    Herb Skoglund, S’54
1998    James Mason, S’55
1997    Harold Carlson, S’48
1996    Emmett Johnson, S’53
1995    Delbert Kuehl, S’48
1994    Virgil Olson, S’41
1993    Gordon Johnson, S’46