William Carey

William Carey was a self-taught village shoemaker who kept a homemade map of the world above his bench and could not stop thinking about the nations that had never heard. Told by an older minister to sit down — that God would convert the heathen without his help — he instead wrote An Enquiry, preached 'expect great things from God; attempt great things for God,' and helped found the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792.

In India he buried a five-year-old son, endured his wife's mental collapse, and watched his printing house burn with years of translation work inside — and stayed forty-one years without once going home. From Serampore he and his colleagues printed Scripture in dozens of languages and founded a college that still stands. 'I can plod,' he said. 'That is my only genius.'