Adoniram Judson

Move over please, Horatio Spafford!

This man, Adoniram Judson, translated the Bible into the Burmese language, during the 19th century.

He worked faithfully at trying to reach the lost of Burma (Myanmar) with the good news of Jesus for over 30 years.

Was he a super-Christian?
A missionary without flaws?
With a productive & fruitful ministry from the outset?

To help answer that, here's a quote from CMS Summer School 2010 speaker, Michael Raiter (himself a former missionary, recent background in history of missions..):

"When he was released [from prison] his small church of 18 had dwindled to 4. In 1828, his wife died. He went into deep depression and spent 4 months sitting by her grave, watching her decomposing body, and writing this
- 'To me, God is the great unknown. I believe in Him, but I cannot find Him.'"

During his years of mission work (in the 1800s), Judson lost 2 wives, 6 kids and 11 co-workers.

Yet by 1993, there were approx. 6 million Christians in Myanmar - all tracing spiritual ancestry back to this man, because he had made the Scriptures available in the Burmese language.
________________

Yes, he suffered.
(So have I - in lesser ways.)

Yes, he was not perfect.
(Nor am I anywhere near it, as my sisters would daily testify.)

Yes, God still used him anyway.
(And amazingly, God has used me, too.)

How I forget God's Word in places like 1 Timothy chapter 1, verses 12-17, at my peril!

At the following link (which will have changed by 2011, so check it out QUICK), if you have just under 42 minutes of spare time, the rest of Michael Raiter's 1st CMS Summer School 2010 talk
- from which I quoted the excerpt, and my source for this post -
is worth a listen.

Please do think about setting aside the 42m to listen; & I hope that it is an encouragement, an inspiration and maybe even a challenge.


Love to all,

L/T.