HEADLINES ? ADONIRUM?JUDSON
- spent 37 years in Burma with only one year back in the US;
- translated the Burmese Bible;
- spent?17 months in prison during Anglo-Burmese war;
- two wives died before him and one after;?seven of his eleven?children died;
- died en route to America and buried at sea in 1850;
- 2012 marks the 200th anniversary of this first North American missionary.
By whatever measurement you measure the man Adonirum Judson, the result is?always the same, he was an amazing?man!
He read at the age of three years, took navigation?lessons at ten, studied theology as a child, entered Providence College (now Brown University) at seventeen, despite the fact that he spent one year of his?youth out of school in sickness. He mastered the Burmese language, writing and speaking it with the familiarity?of a native and the elegance of a cultured scholar; he also translated?the Bible into Burmese. His biographers believe that his translation was undoubtedly?his greatest contribution to the Burmese people.
Despite the fact his father was a Congregational?preacher, and in spite of his mother?s prayers, Judson?was not saved until he was 20 years of age. He had become a confirmed deist?? due largely to the influence of Jacob Eames,?a brilliant unbeliever in college, who?set out to win Judson to his deistic faith, and succeeded.
But, interestingly enough the story goes, Judson?s conversion to Christ was due in large measure to that same deist. After graduation Judson left home to become a wanderer. One night in a country inn his room was adjacent to the room of a dying man.? The moaning and groaning of that man through the long night permitted Judson?no sleep. His thoughts troubled him. All night questions rolled through his mind: Was?the dying man prepared to die? Where would he spend eternity? Was he a Christian, calm and strong in the hope of life in Heaven? Or,?was he a sinner shuddering in fear of hell?
But the next morning, when Judson inquired of the proprietor as to the identity?of the dead man, he was shocked by the most staggering statement he had ever?heard: ?He was a brilliant young person from Providence College. Eames was his name.?
Eames was the unbeliever who had destroyed Judson?s faith. ?Now he?was dead ? and was lost! Was lost! Was lost! Lost! Lost!? Those words?raced through his brain, rang in his ears, roared in his soul ? Was?lost! Lost! Lost! There and then Judson realized he was lost, too. He ended?his traveling, returned home, entered Andover Theological Seminary and soon ?sought?God for the pardon of his soul,? was saved and dedicated his life to?the Master?s service.
His conversion not only saved his soul, it altered?his dreams of fame and?honor for himself. His one pressing purpose became to plan his life?to please his Lord. In 1809, the same year he joined the Congregational?church, he became burdened to become a missionary. He found some friends?from Williams College with the same burden and often met with them at a haystack?on the college grounds to earnestly pray for the salvation of the heathen and petition God to open doors of ministry as missionaries to them. That?spot has been marked as the birthplace of missions in America.
Three years later, February 19, 1812, young Adoniram?Judson, and his bride?of seven days, Ann Haseltine Judson, set sail for India, supported by the first American Board for Foreign Missions. But on that voyage, Judson, while?doing translation work, saw the teaching of immersion as the mode of baptism?in the Bible. Conscientiously and courageously, he cut off his support under?the Congregational board until a Baptist board could be founded to support?him.
The Judsons were rejected entrance into India to preach the Gospel to the?Hindus by the East India Company and after many trying times, frustrations,?fears, and failures, they finally found an open door in Rangoon, Burma.
There was not one known Christian in that land of millions. A baby was born to alleviate the loneliness of the young couple, but it was to be only for a temporary time. Eight months later, Roger William Judson??was buried under a great mango tree. The melancholy ?tum-tum? of??? the death drum for the thousands claimed by cholera, and the firing cannons?and beating on houses with clubs to ward off demons, tormented the sensitive,?spiritual souls of the young?missionary couple..
It was six long?years before the first decision for Christ. Then, on June 27,?1819, Judson baptized the first Burman believer, Moung?Nau. Judson jotted in his journal: ?Oh, may it prove to be the beginning of a series of?baptisms in the Burman empire which shall continue in uninterrupted success?to the end of the age.? The work progressed as converts were slowly added, ?gospel light began to open blind eyes and new converts were transformed.
It seems to me in studying this life?story that there were at least?two?main categories of suffering that Judson obediently went through in his?missionary call to bring the gospel to Burma.??One was his imprisonment and torture and the second was disease and death experienced by his family.
PRISON
Judson was imprisoned as a British spy for seventeen months during the Anglo-Burmese war. At night along with the other prisoners his feet were fettered and a long horizontal bamboo pole was lowered and passed between? the fettered legs and hoisted up till only the shoulders and heads of the prisoners rested on the ground. Judson was condemned to die, but in answer to prayers to God and the incessant pleadings of his wife to officials Judson?s life was spared. Ann was pregnant, yet walked the two miles daily to the palace to plead that Judson was not a spy. Her insistence?paid off when he was allowed daily visits with her in the courtyard. During this?period baby?Maria was born. Ann was almost as sick and thin as Adonirum but she still visited him with their baby to take care of him. Her?milk dried up, and the jailer had mercy on them and actually let Judson take the baby each evening into the village and beg for women to nurse his baby. Judson was suddenly released as the government needed him as a translator? in negotiations with Britain.
FAMILY
- His first wife, Ann, sailed with him?by boat to India and bore him three children; all died. The first baby, nameless, was born dead just as they sailed from India to Burma. The second, Roger, lived 17 months. The third, Elizabeth lived to be two and outlived her mother by six months. Ann died October 1826.
- He married Sarah Boardman, a missionary widow in Burma, on April 10, 1834, eight years after Ann died. They had eight children. Five survived childhood. She was a gifted partner and knew the language better than any but himself. But 11 years later she was so sick that they both set sail for America with the three oldest children. They left the three youngest behind, one of whom died before Judson returned. Judson had not been to America now for 33 years and was only returning for the sake of his wife. As they rounded the tip of Africa in September 1845, Sarah died. The ship dropped anchor at St. Helena Island long enough to dig a grave and bury a wife and mother and then sail on.
- To everyone?s amazement, Judson fell in love a 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 writing career to go with Judson to Burma. They arrived in November, 1846. And God gave them four of the happiest years that either of them had ever known. On her first anniversary, June 2, 1847 she wrote:? ?It has been far the happiest year of my life; and, what is in my eyes still more important, my husband says it has been among the happiest of his. I never met with any man who could talk so well, day after day, on every subject, religious, literary, scientific, political, and?nice baby-talk.?
- They had one child, but then the old sicknesses attacked Adoniram?one last time. The only hope was to send the desperately ill Judson on a voyage. On April 3, 1850 they carried Adoniram onto the Aristide Marie bound for the Isle of France with one friend, Thomas Ranney, to care for him. In his misery he would be roused from time to time by terrible pain ending in vomiting. One of his last sentences was: ?How few there? are who? who die so hard!? At 4:15pm on Friday afternoon April 12, 1850, Adoniram Judson died at sea, away from all his family and Burmese Church. The crew assembled quietly. The larboard port was opened. There were no prayers; the captain gave the order; the coffin slid through the port into the night.
- Ten days later Emily gave birth to their second child who died at birth. She learned four months later that her husband was dead. She returned to New England that next January and died of tuberculosis three years later at the age of 37.
And so the Burmese church was born. The Bible was done. The dictionary was done. Hundreds of converts were leading the church.? At his death there was a Burmese church of 7000. Today there are close to 4,500 Baptist congregations with over 2 million members (4.5% of the population)?in Myanmar who trace their origin to this man?s labors of love. Myanmar?s 50 million population is 8% Christian.
Patrick Johnstone in Operation world notes in relation to Burma/Myanmar: ?Praise God for the refining of the Church, made possible by the desperation of persecution, poverty and isolation. Myanmar is a classic example of how suffering, while lamentable, serves to accomplish God?s purposes for His people.? p. 610.? And it was the founding Christian leader, Adonirum Judson, who modelled that so painfully well.
BIOGRAPHIES
- To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson by Courtney Anderson. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1987.? 530 pages. (Dr Miriam Charter, Intercultural Studies professor at Ambrose says,? ?If you want a life-changing experience, read the biography of his life called: To the Golden Shore.?)
- Adonirum Judson: How few there are who die so hard by John Piper 2012, 25 pages. (Piper ties a theology of suffering to the planting of the gospel in this free e-book download.)
- Bless God and Take Courage: The Judson History and Legacy by Rosalie Hall Hunt. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2005. 403 pages.
- My Heart in His Hands: Ann Judson of Burma?by Sharon James. Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 1998, 237 pages.
- Ann H. Judson of Burma by E. R. Pitman. Published by Christian Literature Crusade, 1988, 92 pages.
His grammar of the Burmese language here
Jesus film on YouTube?in Burmese here? (we assume they are using Judson?s translation of Luke here)
QUOTABLE QUOTES
- a letter written by Adoniram?Judson to Ann Hasseltine?s father, in which he asked permission to marry her: ??I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world? Whether you can consent to see her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life? Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death? Can you consent to all this, for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of Zion and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with a crown of righteousness brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair???
- I am not tired of my work, neither am I tired of the world; yet, when Christ calls me home, I shall go with gladness.
- In spite of sorrow, loss, and pain, Our course be onward still; We sow?on Burmah?s barren plain, We reap on Zion?s hill.
- If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings.
- Do not the successes which have crowned some missionary exertions seem like the dawn of morning on the east? O! that this region of Egyptian darkness may ere long participate in the vivifying beams of light.
- God answers all true prayer, either in kind or in kindness.
- It is true that we may desire much more. But let us use what we have, and God will give us more.
- The motto of every missionary, whether preacher, printer, or schoolmaster, ought to be ?Devoted for life.?
?
?
?
Source: http://www.transformcma.ca/missionaries-you-should-know-adonirum-judson/
the monkees strikeforce davy jones love actually miesha tate vs ronda rousey idiocracy deep impact
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন