The story of Adoniram Judson’s losses is almost overwhelming. When you think the last one was the worst and couldn’t take it anymore, another one comes, in fact, it would be overwhelming if we could not see the whole historical vision of God, the seed that died a thousand times gave life, in Myanmar (formerly Burma) to an extraordinary movement for Christ.
When Adoniram Judson entered Burma in July 1813, the area was a hostile and totally inaccessible place. William Carey had told Judson, India, a few months before it wasn’t. Would you probably consider it a closed country today?With anarchic despotism, fierce war with Zion, enemy attacks, constant rebellion and no religious tolerance. All the former missionaries were dead or missing.
- But Judson went there with his wife of twenty-three years.
- He was twenty-four and worked there for thirty-eight until his death at sixty-one.
- And only made one trip back to New England after thirty-three years.
- The price he paid was enormous.
- It was a seed that fell to the ground and died over and over again.
Judson entered Andover Seminary in Newton, Massachusetts, in October 1808, and on December 2nd was solemnly dedicated to God. The fire of the mission was burning in Andover. On June 28, 1810, Judson and others performed missionary service in the East. He met Ann Hasseltine the same day and fell in love. After meeting Ann for a month, he declared his intention to become a suitor and wrote the following letter to his father:
“Now I must ask you if you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, never to see her again in this world; if you can consent to her departure and subject her to the difficulties and sufferings of missionary life; if you consent to your exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the climate in southern India; all kinds of desires and anxieties; degradation, insult, persecution and possibly violent death. who left their heavenly home and died for her and for you; by the immortal souls who perish; by Zion and the glory of God?You can agree with all this, hoping to find your daughter in the world of glory. , soon, with the crown of righteousness, enlightened by the cheers of praise that will be redundant to your Savior, by the heathen saved, by him, from eternal suffering and despair” (At Golden Shore, 83).
The father, surprisingly, said she could decide for herself. Adoniram and Ann married on February 5, 1812 and sailed to India fourteen days later with two other couples and two single men divided into two ships, in case one of them sank. After a brief stay in India, Adoniram and Ann decided to take the risk of venturing into a new camp and arrived in Yangon, Burma, on 13 July 1813.
In Burma, they began a lifelong battle, in a 40-degree heat where there was cholera, malaria, dysentery and other unknown torments, leading to the death not only of Ann, but of a second wife, seven of her thirteen children and colleague after partner.
Through all his struggles against disease and disruption, Judson worked to learn the language, translate the Bible and evangelize in the streets. Six years after his arrival and Ann, his first convert, Maung Nau, was appointed. The harvest was even more difficult for years, but in 1831, nineteen years after its arrival, there was a new spirit on earth. Judson says:
“The spirit of research . . . extends everywhere, all over the earth. [We distribute] about 10,000 flyers, delivered only to those who request it. I suppose there were 6, 000 orders at home, do some of them come from two or three months of travel, from the borders of Zion and China?”Lord, we hear that there is eternal hell. We’re afraid of him. Give us a handwritten book that tells us how to escape it. Others, from the borders of Kathay, 160 kilometers north of Ava?”Lord, we have seen a writing that speaks of an eternal God. Are you the man who reveals such writings? If so, please give us one, because we want you to know the truth before we die?Others, from within the country, where the name of Jesus Christ is little known?Are you the man of Jesus Christ? Give us a scripture that tells us about Jesus Christ. ? (At Golden Shore, 398?99).
But there was a huge price to pay between the first convert in 1819 and this outpouring of God’s power in 1831.
In 1823, Adoniram and Ann moved from Yangon to Ava, the capital, about four hundred and fifty kilometres inland and beyond the Irrawaddy River. It was risky to be close to the despotic emperor. In May of the following year, a British fleet arrived in Yangon and bombed the port. All Westerners were immediately considered spies and Adoniram was dragged out of his home. On 8 June 1824, he was arrested. His feet were tied and, at night, a long horizontal bamboo stick came down and passed between his legs attached and rose until only the shoulders and head of the prisoners rested on the ground.
Ann was pregnant, but she traveled the two miles daily to the palace to claim that Judson was not a spy and that they should feel sorry for him. On November 4, 1825, Judson was suddenly released. The government needed him as a translator in negotiations with Britain. The long ordeal lasted more than seventeen months in prison and on the brink of death, with his wife sacrificing herself and her baby to care for him as much as possible. Damaged. Eleven months later, on October 24, 1826, his daughter died and six months later.
The psychological effect of these losses has been devastating. Doubt invaded his mind and he wondered if he had become a missionary out of ambition and fame, not out of humility and selfless love. He began reading Catholic mystics such as Madame Guyon, Fénelon and Thomas in Kempis, which led him to solitary asceticism. and various forms of self-employment Did you give up the work of translating the Old Testament, the love of your life, and increasingly becoming ingested of people and anything that could sustain pride or promote your pleasure?((On Golden Shore, 387).
He dug a grave next to his hut and sat next to it, observing the steps of the dissolution of the body. He retired only for forty days in the tiger-infested jungle, and wrote in a letter that he felt a total spiritual desolation. “God is the great stranger to me. I believe him, but I can’t find him. ?(At Golden Shore, 391).
His brother Elnathan died on May 8, 1829, at the age of 35, which, paradoxically, turned out to be the turning point in Judson’s recovery, as he had reason to believe that the brother he had left incredulous seventeen years before he had died in. Throughout 1830, Adoniram emerged from his darkness.
The translation of the Bible was at the heart of Judson’s missionary work from the beginning, and especially at this stage of his life, during these years of spiritual recovery, without wives or children, he was limited to a small room built with the aim of dedicating almost all his energy to perfecting the translation of the New Testament and continuing with the Old Testament. At the end of 1832, three thousand copies of the entire New Testament were printed. He completed the Old Testament on January 31, 1834.
With the first draft of the Bible in Burmese, it seems that God smiles at these works with the favor of a new wife. Three years earlier, another missionary had died in Burma, named George Boardman, whose widow, Sarah, stayed in Burma. and became a legend, working in the countryside, always with his baby George. In February 1834 Judson received a letter from Sarah. On April 1, he left Moulmein to go to Tavoy, determined to woo her. On April 10, they got married.
These would be Burma’s happiest moments, but not without pain, and would not last much longer than a decade. After having eight children in eleven years, Sarah became so ill that the family decided to travel to America in the hope that the air of the Judson Sea had not been in America for 33 years and only returned for his wife. When circumna fought around the tip of Africa in September 1845, Sarah died. The ship anchored on the island of St. Helena for a long time enough to dig a grave, bury the wife and mother of their children and then leave.
This time, Adoniram did not descend into the depths of depression as before, he had children. Moreover, his suffering had deterred him from waiting long in this world, he learned to hate his life in this world without bitterness or depression (Jn 12:25), and now he had a passion: to go back and give his life for Burma. .
Judson’s stay in the United States did not go as planned. To everyone’s surprise, he fell in love for the third time, this time with Emily Chubbuck, and married her on June 2, 1846. She was 29; He was 57. She was a famous writer and left her fame and career as a writer to go with Judson to Burma. They arrived in November 1846. God gave them four of the happiest years the two have ever known.
Adoniram and Emily had a son. Things seemed brilliant, but the old diseases attacked Adoniram for the last time. The only hope was to send Judson seriously ill on a trip. On 3 April 1850, Aristide Marie was taken to Adoniram, who departed for the Island of France, with a friend, Thomas Ranney, to care for him. In his suffering, from time to time he was awakened by a terrible pain that ended in vomit. One of his last sentences was: “How many are there . . . who have such a difficult death!(At Golden Shore, 504).
At 4:15 p. m. On Friday, April 12, 1850, Adoniram Judson died at sea, away from his entire family and the Burmese church. That night the ship left. “The crew gathered in silence. The side cargo door was opened. There were no prayers. ” . . . . The captain gave the order. The coffin slid out the door at night (at Golden Shore, 505).
Ten days later, Emily gave birth to her second child, who died at birth; she learned four months after her husband’s death; he returned to New England in January and died of tuberculosis three years later at the age of 37.
Was Judson’s life a grain of wheat that fell to the ground in Myanmar and died?(Jn 12:24). His suffering was immense. And the fruit too. In the change from the second to the third millennium, Patrick Johnstone calculated the Myanmar Baptist Convention (Burma’s new name) in 3,700 congregations with 617,781 members and 1,900,000 members: the fruit of this dead seed.
Of course, were there others besides Judson? Hundreds more over time. They also came and gave their lives. Many of them died much younger than Judson. They’re only good for making the point. Today’s surprising fruits in Myanmar have pushed the suffering and death of many missionaries, especially Adoniram Judson, to the ground.