The Great Cloud of Witnesses · The Missionary Century
Adoniram Judson
1788–1850 · American
America's first foreign missionary, who buried two wives and several children in Burma and gave the Burmese their Bible.
The life
Adoniram Judson sailed for Asia in 1812, days after marrying Ann Hasseltine, and spent six years in Burma before baptizing his first convert. During the Anglo-Burmese war he was seized as a suspected spy and spent seventeen months in the death prisons, hung by his mangled feet at night, while Ann walked miles daily to bribe the jailers and keep him and his translation manuscript alive — she hid it inside a pillow. Ann died soon after his release; a second wife, Sarah, died at sea; he buried several children in Burmese soil. He kept translating.
His Burmese Bible, completed in 1840, remains the standard version, and the church he planted among the Burmese and Karen peoples today numbers in the millions.