[This transcript has been edited for improved clarity when reading]

Today, for our biography, we are going to travel back to the late 1700's and to America first up, where Adoniram Judson was born in 1788, in Massachusetts. 

He was born into a Christian home - his father was quite a stern pastor of a Congregational church - and as he grew up he was taught strong Christian principles. He was an extremely intelligent child, probably genius standard. Once his father went away for two weeks, and his mother, just because she could, decided she would teach Adoniram to read. At the end of the two weeks, three year old Adoniram read out a whole chapter from the Bible to his father. 

Of course, he whizzed through school, and he skipped many grades. By the age of 16 he had entered university, and he skipped through university as well - he finished top of his year and had many awards. But during his time at university, he was very much influenced by the friends around him, and by one particular friend, by the name of Jacob Eames. Now this particular friend was a deist, and that was a new and liberal way of thinking in those days. These people were quite anti-Christian in their ideas, they were "modern" thinkers, they looked at philosophy and they decided that Christianity and other religions were the corruption of the true natural order. So this was Jacob Eames passion, and because he was also quite an intellectual individual and a very sophisticated thinker, he and Adoniram became good friends. He was a huge influence on Adoniram, but the two of them together spurred each other on in their anti-Christian ideas. 

When he eventually went home, he broke this news to his parents, who had hoped that he would become a pastor and follow in his father's footsteps. He said to his father, "There's no way. In fact, I don't even believe in God anymore. And I definitely don't believe in Jesus or the Bible. So I'm not following in your footsteps at all." His attitude and his fervor against Christianity broke his parents' heart, and his mother started to pray for him every day. 

With his liberal thinking, he also wanted a very liberal lifestyle. He didn't want to be stuck in the typical intellectual fields. He wanted to write for the theater - that was his aim. And so he decided that he would travel to New York, and get a job writing plays for theater and work his way up into that world. So he asked his parents for some money, he got a horse, and he took off to New York. 

Well, it really wasn't all he thought it should be - he had idealistic ideas of what it would be like and it simply wasn't like that. So after five weeks, he found himself heading back home. On the way home to Massachusetts, he stopped at an ordinary inn on the highway. There wasn't much room in this inn - it was quite full. Most of the rooms were full, and the innkeeper was quite reluctant. There was one room available, but the innkeeper said, "Oh, we've actually been keeping it free because, well, unfortunately the person next door is very sick, and with the comings and goings and this person screaming and crying, nobody would want to sleep next door. It wouldn't be good - you'd feel very uneasy I'm sure."

But Adoniram said, "I wouldn't feel uneasy. For me, death is nothing. There is no heaven or hell. That is all foolish talk." He was very arrogant in his attitude and he said to the innkeeper that it wouldn't make him uneasy at all. So the innkeeper gave him that last room. 

During the night, as he lay down, he did hear the groans and the cries of this dying man next door, and it did get quite bad. As he lay there, he couldn't sleep. The walls were very thin, and he could hear him screaming out and crying, and he could hear what he was saying, and Adoniram did become uneasy. But he tried to channel all those things that he and Jacob had talked about regarding their view of the world. But the uneasiness didn't leave him. And in fact, as he lay there, he kept thinking, "What if it was me that was lying in that bed, dying? Would I be ready to face death?" 

After a sleepless night, he went downstairs in the morning to check out of the inn, and he said to the innkeeper, "How is the man? Is he better?" And the innkeeper said, "No, he died in the early hours of the morning. Such a shame. He was a young man, just like you." And for some reason Adoniram said, "What was his name?" And the innkeeper said, "His name was Jacob Eames." Adoniram was shaken to the core. There, crying, screaming in fear, was his friend, his friend who he looked up to all these years and had formed his thinking and his worldview. He was so shaken, that he jumped on his horse and he rode - he didn't even know where he was going - and as he rode the words, "Dead, lost, lost, dead" resounded in his ears. 

This experience was the beginning of something that propelled him to God. He realized how foolish he had been, and how empty his worldview had been at that time. When he went back home he shocked his parents by saying that he wanted to enter straightaway into the theological college in Andover. They knew something big had happened - he was very much a changed person - but he wasn't converted just at that point. A little while after starting at theological college he really found the Lord.

During his time there at the theological college in Andover, he started to think about the idea of going overseas as a missionary, going to other places, to faraway and far flung countries and he picked up an account that a British military officer had written about the country called Burma. And at that time, absolutely nothing was known about this country (which is modern day Myanmar), and the idea of mission and missionaries was  very unusual in the early 1800s. America had not sent any missionaries overseas, so there was no such thing as a mission organization or anything like that.

Soon Adoniram and a couple of other young men got together and tried to help the university put together some funding to send them overseas, and Adoniram himself felt strongly that he should go to Burma. But no one knew anything about Burma. There was no information other than the short account of a military officer who'd passed through it.

Meanwhile, Ann, then Ann Hasseltine, was living not so far away. She was a young, beautiful socialite, living in a very large household with a very big family. She was the youngest daughter, and she was often in demand to come to parties and such things. She had an extroverted personality and people were drawn to her. The family, like everybody in those days, attended church, but it wasn't until Ann was about 16, when a new teacher came, that she thought about her faith for the very first time. This new teacher not only spoke to the Sunday school, but spoke elsewhere as well, and a huge revival happened in this particular congregation. In fact, Ann's whole family realized that none of them had ever been saved, even though they'd attended church their entire lives, and they were all converted. 

This was the first step for Ann because she realized once she'd found the Lord, that she had a lot of very poor habits. There was much growth and struggle in these early teenage years when she became a Christian. She realized that a lot of her life was just frivolous. She spent all her time thinking about the next hat to wear, her hairdo, the fashion, the dress, the materials, everything for the next social, one after the other. She gave no thought for her life in any other way. She struggled to make changes. She used to vow that she would think differently, and she wouldn't do these things that she was in a habit of doing. Then, of course, she'd fail. She wrote in her journal that now she really understood the verse that says, "The carnal mind is enmity against God." When she was converted, she wanted to think very differently about her life, she didn't want to waste it. So, with the limited options available, she decided she would study to be a teacher, and, at least that way, she could help other people. Her journals show how much she was growing. At 17 she wrote, "The more grace Christians have, the clearer they can see the contrast between holiness and sin." 

Now, the Hasseltine household was in the habit of hospitality, and that is how Adoniram and Ann met. He was 22, and she was 21. They immediately began discussing matters of faith and in Ann, Adoniram found somebody who really understood his burden to become a missionary, even though such a thing was so unusual at that time. About a month afterwards, Adoniram wrote to Anne's father, to ask for her hand in marriage, and I would say this would be one of the most extraordinary proposal letters ever written. Here's an excerpt: 

"Dear Sir, 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 her departure for a heathen land, to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to every kind of want and distress, to degradation, to insult, to persecution, and perhaps even a violent death? Can you consent to all this, for the sake of the perishing, for the sake of Him who left His heavenly home and died for her and for you, for the sake of immortal souls, for the sake of Zion, and for the sake of the glory of God?"

What a letter!  John and Rebecca Hasseltine agreed. But they said to Ann, "It really should be your decision, not ours." Ann did love Adoniram, but more than that, she shared his vision to go overseas. This was really unusual, because no woman had ever left America to be a missionary anywhere, and it was thought to be completely inappropriate, - the idea of going to some foreign land, and particularly a land that no one knew anything about, like Burma. It was like saying "Go to Mars" in those days. People accused Ann - they said that she was an idealist, she was empty headed, they said that she was romantic in the extreme, or just simply wild. But Ann was resolved to go and there were a few other young men and women that Ann's resolve and determination influenced. 

So in 1812, Ann and Adoniram were married, and very shortly afterwards, they said an emotional farewell. Five men and three women left the shores of America to sail towards India first, and then they would be going off in different directions. Leaving was very hard and it was for Ann not the most pleasant of honeymoons. She would often be in fits of tears as she remembered her family, which, realistically, she understood, she might never see again. She also had no idea what her life would be like - they didn't even know if they could set foot in Burma, they didn't know what the government was like there, they had no image in their mind of what it could be. They didn't know where they'd end up. They didn't know whether they would even make it. But all her journals reflect a quiet certainty in God's sovereignty, and complete trust. 

Now, Burma in the 1800s was actually quite a prosperous, or relatively prosperous, kingdom. It lies between India and Siam (which is Thailand) and China. At that time it was entirely Buddhist. In fact, to be Burmese was to be Buddhist, and no subject was allowed to convert to any other religion. Very few foreigners had come into Burma or had even passed through, and some people who had come had been killed there. There was one missionary there, Felix Carey, the son of William Carey. He'd only arrived in 1807. Very few people had entered its borders, and William Carey, who was based in India at this time, strongly advised Adoniram and Ann Judson not go to Burma. It was too dangerous, they were notorious for their brutal treatment, the king was quite corrupt, they had horrific tortures, and the executions were awful. But Adoniram and Ann still felt called to go to this country. 

Their voyage took them first to India, where they stayed with William Carey for a while. In those days, travel was so slow - you had to wait months and months for another ship, and so they were in India for a good while. Then they finally set sail from India, all the way to Burma. 

This was not a pleasant journey. Ann was heavily pregnant at the time and on this voyage she gave birth to her first child, who was stillborn. She became very ill. They had employed a servant to help Ann, but the servant died at the very beginning of the journey as well. This introduction to Burma was very difficult. 

When they finally arrived in Rangoon they were shocked at the sight of the place. They had their houses set up on bamboo poles because the whole place used to flood. But then they would also just drop all the waste on the floor below. So everywhere was crawling with rats and flies, the drainage was very bad,  and you can imagine the smell!

But also, when Adoniram looked out, he could see on the skyline the Golden Pagoda, the Buddhist temple, which rose up in the center of the city.  It was supposed to have been built on eight hairs of the Buddha himself. When Adoniram looked at this he said, "A voice mightier than mine, a still small voice, will ere long sweep away every vestige of thy dominion, and the churches of Jesus Christ will soon supplant these idolatrous monuments." 

Ann was still very sick and weak and as she was helped off the boat, she sat under a tree in the shade, and because she was absolutely exhausted, she was bowed over. And as they were unloading the ship, the people gathered around and crowds came and they all gathered around, and children would lift up her bonnet to look underneath and then jump away. She was the first white woman to come to Burma. They had never seen a white woman. 

The couples settled into the home of Felix Carey (he wasn't there at the time, he was traveling - he did medical things like vaccinations across the country). The mission house was not in the city, it was outside the city and next to the public execution site and the rubbish dump, but it was adequate, and they were able to stay there. 

The minute they got there, they wasted no time - they got straight into studying the language as they knew that they would be completely useless if they couldn't speak the language. But what a language it was! Ann and Adoniram were both gifted with languages. Adoniram was fluent in Latin, but that didn't help here. This language had no European base whatsoever, it was so utterly bewildering and the script was completely different. To make matters worse, they didn't have punctuation, so you couldn't even work out where a word began and ended. And then on top of that, a lot of the books that he had access to were just scratchings on palm leaves that were sewn together. But he set up a punishing 12 hour a day schedule, and he worked hard at studying the language. He employed a teacher, a local who, of course, spoke no English. So this local would point to objects and name them and Adoniram would follow him and try to learn. Ann as well was studying the language. When Carey returned to Rangoon and met Adoniram and Ann, he was so impressed. 

But for Adoniram, this punishing schedule almost pushed him to break down, that's how severely he studied. But in six months he had a good grasp of the language and Carey couldn't believe it. But Felix Carey himself had many of his own difficulties. His wife and two children drowned in a boating accident, and he lost most of his possessions. This incident broke Felix Carey, who was already prone to severe depression, and he ended up leaving. So Ann and Adoniram found themselves quite alone in the kingdom of Burma. 

Ann was very quick to pick up the spoken language, she worked with some of the servants and maids in the home, but Adoniram really worked hard at studying the grammar and the style of writing - he wanted to get that right. He even studied the more formal Buddhist texts, and both of them managed to be fluent in two years. 

Both Ann and Adoniram had a huge sense of responsibility to the whole nation. There had been no converts at all, not one, and the feeling in the whole country was one of indifference. People would say to them, "Our religion is good for us, your religion is good for you." But Adoniram felt that he needed to set to work immediately to translate the Bible - to translate first the New Testament. He felt that it was so important that the people have the Word of God in their own language. He believed also that he would at least be providing the foundation for the next generation of missionaries.

Ann gave birth to a healthy baby boy in 1815, two and a half years after their arrival in Burma, and it brought so much joy to the couple. They were so alone, but now they were a little family. To top things off, they got their first letter from America, two and a half years after arriving! That's how communication was in those days. But the climate and the punishing schedule of language study and meeting with locals, meant that they both suffered a lot of illnesses, and their little boy also. He was taken with a fever and he never recovered. These are the days before antibiotics. At just eight months old, they found that they were burying their little boy, Roger Judson. They were both devastated by this. It really hit them hard.

Ann was very gifted with people, and she quickly made an impression everywhere, including in the high echelons of society. She had made very good friends with the Viceroy's wife - the Viceroy was like the governor of the area. On hearing of the death of Anne's little boy, the Viceroy's wife immediately sent a procession of elephants to the mission house and came in state and insisted that Ann and Adoniram ride on an elephant through the Burmese countryside as a way helping with their grief. Ann and Adoniram accepted all these kindnesses, and they were quickly learning about the culture. 

But they really did struggle with the grief of losing their son. But what I can see as a theme in their lives is that they both had a sense of urgency, and they had a vision of eternity. They knew that they had to lay aside these griefs because the Lord would one day wipe their tears from their eyes. 

Adoniram had heard that there were some Burmese speaking Christians living in Chittagong, a city that was in Bengal which was part of India at that time and under British control. Adoniram wanted to speak to these people and he wanted to persuade them, or some of them, to come to Burma, because he wanted to break the impression that Christianity was a white man's religion, that it was just for foreigners. 

So he set off in December 1817, and in those days travel was very difficult. Impossible currents, the headwinds and a few storms, meant that this two week journey turned out to be a disaster. It turned into a three month journey because the ship couldn't pull into the port at Chittagong and had to keep going. Then they ran out of food and water on the ship, and the crew and everybody on board became critically ill, including Adoniram. Finally they were able to pull into a port somewhere and Adoniram then had to make a 480 kilometer land journey down to the south of India and wait another three months before a ship was ready to sail him back to Rangoon. So this two week journey turned into just over six months. 

During this time, Ann had received news that the ship had never reached Chittagong, but that was all she knew. She wondered, "What does that mean? It just kept sailing? Or does that mean it was lost at sea? Was Adoniram dead or alive? There, waiting in the mission house in the backwater of Rangoon, she could get no news whatsoever. This was such terrible uncertainty, and she wrote that she found this school of affliction a heavy, heavy trial. She prayed to the Lord that she would be able to live out the phrase, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." But she was finding that very difficult. During this time, another missionary couple had arrived, George and Phoebe Hough - they'd come from America, and they brought with them a printing press. They could print a lot of the things that Ann and Adoniram had written, such as the principles of Christianity, gospel tracts and so on.

But also, just at this time, there were rumors of war between Britain and Burma. Immediately, George and Phoebe Hough said, "We need to get out of here. If there's war, we have to get out." They found that there was one boat leaving Rangoon all the way to Calcutta in India. They were insistent that they needed to get out. And so George and Phoebe booked their tickets and they begged Ann that she should come with them - they weren't going to leave her on her own. But Ann was in an agony of indecision. She couldn't just leave - Adoniram could be back at any point. And what would happen if they missed each other? But then what happens if he's dead? What should she do? She couldn't work it out. George and Phoebe were insistent they would not leave her there on her own. In this foreign land, a woman, on her own? No, she must come. And so very reluctantly, Ann packed her things, and without knowing what was going to happen, she booked her ticket. When they loaded everything onto the ship, Ann had no peace, she was restless. But you can't get off a ship - it was sailing down the river now. She felt very strongly that she shouldn't be on that ship, and she should be getting off. Just before the vessel hit open water and the open sea, the crew realized that it was tilting - it hadn't been loaded correctly. So they pulled into the nearest port and decided to unload and reload the ship properly. 

Well Ann took the opportunity straightaway. She said, "I'm going to get off. That's it, I'm leaving the ship." George and Phoebe were horrified. "Ann you can't do that." But she was sure - she had no peace being on that ship. She felt that the Lord was leading her to get off, and so she took her things, and on her own, made the difficult trip by land, and then by boat, back to her mission house in Rangoon. There, she decided that she would trust the Lord entirely, and leave everything to Him. She continued with her writing and translating. Three days later, Adoniram suddenly returned. That voyage to Chittagong had been a complete waste of time - he never even got there. But both of them had learned such big lessons about trusting the Lord in absolutely everything.

For this couple, learning the language was not enough. They realized that to really get  to understand the Burmese people, they needed to know the culture. So they were observing the culture, and they were trying to understand how the society worked. When they observed the way things were set up in Buddhism and the way people approached Buddhist teachers, they realized that there were little buildings scattered about called Zayats. These were often in the main streets. You see, people didn't necessarily go to a temple to get teaching, they would go to these roadside huts. The front was often sheltered, but open, and travelers could just pause there for shade and tea. But the Buddhist teachers would also be seated there, and people could often just come and sit and talk. 

So Adoniram decided he would do the same. He built himself a hut on the main road, Pagoda Road, that led from the town to the great Golden Pagoda. He built this with an open front and he would sit there all day and welcome people in to come and talk. Ann would sit in the covered part of the back and she would get women to come and they would sit and she would introduce them to this man called Jesus Christ. This was very successful because people were familiar with this, and they came and soon Adoniram became known as The Teacher. 

On the 30th of April 1819, over six years after arriving in Burma, one man stopped in that zayat, and listened to Adoniram. This man was Maung Naw. He was the very first Burmese to become a Christian, and there certainly could be no ulterior motive for this. He knew that his conversion to become a Christian would definitely lead to persecution. There were no other Burmese Christians. Ann and Adoniram were overjoyed. For six years of intense work, meeting with people, talking with people, writing, there finally was fruit. The Lord was at work. This young man drank in the Scriptures. He remembered the first time that he heard Adoniram read Matthew five, six and seven, the Sermon on the Mount, that he was physically trembling. He said that this teaching was so different. It was such a complete contrast to everything he had understood about the world through Buddhism. Only a few weeks after hearing for the first time, Maung Naw was baptized, and this little church of three sat down and broke bread together. 

More and more people were coming to the zayat, including quite prominent Buddhist teachers. But this also attracted the attention of officials who were wondering what was going on exactly. Soon they came with demands for money - that was harassment. And then in the community, there were rumors of torture and threats of torture and death. For any who allied themselves with the foreigners, there would be consequences, and suddenly Adoniram found that there were no more visitors coming into his zayat. But that was not before another two people were baptized. 

The situation was getting very difficult now that there were only three Christians in the country, and the threats were coming in thick and fast. And so Adoniram decided to do something that was a little bit risky. He wanted to go to speak with the king. He thought that if the king was interested in the gospel, then there would be a huge opening for this country. So Adoniram and another missionary by the name of James Coleman, and Maung Naw made the 500 kilometer journey to Ava, to speak to the king. They had various tracts to present in the Burmese language. But when the king heard, and took the tracts, he threw them down on the ground, and he declared again, that no subject of Burma would ever be allowed to convert to a foreign religion.

They were, of course, escorted out, and when they came back to Rangoon, they told the little band of new converts - they had just three at that time - "This is hard, maybe we need to go elsewhere. The threats will keep coming, and people are not coming to hear anymore." But these young converts begged Adoniram to stay. They were so young in the faith, and they knew, because they had neighbors and friends, that there were many people who wanted to know about this man called Jesus, but were just too scared to come out in public. 

To add to the difficulties of this time, both Ann and Adoniram were struggling with cholera and fevers and many other illnesses of the tropics. At that time, one of the key remedies for any kind of serious illness was a sea voyage. They believed that just breathing in the salty air would cure you of any serious disease. Ann wasn't getting any better, and she was so sick and weak that there seemed really no choice. So although it was heart wrenching, they realized that she needed to go back to America and get some proper medical help, because to stay in Burma meant certain death. But to leave Adoniram behind was very hard. 

Ann set sail for America, hoping that the sea voyage in itself would heal her, and then maybe the medical help and supplies from America would be able to restore her further and she would come back, well and healthy. But her health didn't improve on the sea voyage. She had first to go to England, and then from England take another voyage to America, so it was a really long period of time. Her health, even when she arrived in England, was very fragile. She was given the best care from family and friends. People had heard of her and heard of her and Adoniram and that they were in Burma. Everybody tried to help and give her the absolute best. But perhaps the absolute best in those days wasn't particularly helpful. In those days, the recommendation was certain blue pills, which contained mercury, which we now know is highly toxic, and creates exhaustion and is damaging to the brain. And they practiced bloodletting, where they cut into a vein and just let the blood run. So Ann didn't seem to improve. 

Despite all this, she did rest, and perhaps that was helpful. But she wasn't idle - she kept writing. She wrote, during this time "An Account of the Mission in Burma". She gave people an understanding of the country, of what they were doing, of the culture, of the people. This little account was so helpful, in fact, it was so inspirational to many people, it was circulated in England and in America, and it inspired many people to think about coming over to Southeast Asia. The whole trip was meant to restore Ann, but it didn't. It did, however, raise a huge amount of awareness of what they were doing there. 

Meanwhile, Adoniram was missing Ann terribly. He knew that he would never hear from her - in those days there was no way of communicating - it would be years before he would get a letter from her. He wrote to a friend that to have her leave was to have his right eye gouged out, or his right arm chopped off. That was how he felt about having Ann leave. And although he dreamt of a time when she would return and they could go somewhere together and in quietness they could have their own time together, he knew that he needed to lay that down. He realized that his life was far too short, and that the Burmese people were perishing eternally day after day. He knew he had to place his happiness, their happiness, second to the kingdom of God. 

It was two years before Ann returned to Rangoon, and the couple were reunited very happily. But their sense of urgency was seen in the fact that Ann didn't even unpack. Adoniram had found an opening to travel to the capital city, Ava. The king's brother had shown interest in the gospel, and had written to Adoniram and invited him to come back. And so Ann didn't unpack, they just loaded another ship, and she and Adoniram together went to Ava to set up there. Ann was very excited about doing this. She thought that a presence in the capital would be good, that she would set up a school - at least people could see the good that they could do. 

But this was a very dangerous move, and many people said it was not a wise decision. At this time, the country was on the brink of war against Britain, and there was a general anger towards any foreigner. But Adoniram and some other missionaries were sure that being American they would be okay - they weren't British after all. But other missionaries had left and encouraged them to do the same. They said, "You have got to get out of the country." There were ships sailing to Bengal, and many of them urged Ann and Adoniram, and one other missionary by the name of Dr. Price, to leave, but they decided that they wouldn't. They would stay. The country needed them there. They couldn't just all leave. 

War did break out, and Adoniram and Dr. Price were arrested. Being American or being British, what did it matter? There was no distinction made - they were foreign. And so in 1824, they were arrested and thrown into a Burmese prison. Now Ann was left on her own and she sprang into action. She immediately burnt all letters, memoirs, journals, anything that mentioned any association with England, Britain, or anybody British. She went around and appealed to magistrate after magistrate. They were in prison for being British spies, and she was saying, "They're not even British, they're American. How could they be spies?" But it was all to no avail. People turned away from her. There was one Burmese man by the name of Maung Ing who accompanied her everywhere. He was also a believer, and he found out in what prison Adoniram and Dr. Price were held. 

Meanwhile, Ann was writing to every princess and every person in high place she could. She would get letters back from the king's sisters, which simply said, "I do not understand it", which culturally meant, "I'm not getting involved". Only one governor, the governor of that area, was sympathetic to her, but he had no authority to release prisoners. 

Finally, Ann, thanks to Maung Ing, found the prison. It was about a three kilometer walk from the home that they'd set up in Ava. The prison was a horrendous place. It was full of torture, it was horribly dirty, full of all sorts of human evil. The prisoners were bound in heavy chains that cut into them. Every day they were hung up on bamboo poles so that they would be upside down with just the back of their neck touching the ground, making it almost impossible to sleep. Every night the mosquitoes would come off the rice paddies and invade the prison and they would be eaten by the mosquitoes. When Ann came, Judson could only just crawl to the door of the prison to greet Ann with tears. But the guards would order her away and they would push him back. So every day Ann walked to this prison with food for her husband and for Mr. Price, and whatever luxury she could pass to them. She bore the taunts and insults of the guards to come, sometimes for only a few seconds, to see her husband. And in between she was feverishly appealing again and again to anybody who would be able to secure their release. She was something like the persistent widow in Jesus' parable. Another thing she did was she wrapped up Adoniram's New Testament, the translation that he'd been working on for 10 years, and she smuggled it in inside a pillow. She knew that anytime something could happen to her, so the only place it would be safe was with Adoniram in prison, and she managed to get it into him. 

All this time, she was pregnant. For seven months, she did this. She wrote, she walked she cooked. She paid bribes. She bore insults, she bore hunger, just to secure her husband's release. At the end of seven months, she simply couldn't do it anymore, she was about to give birth. And alone, she gave birth to little Maria Judson, in 1825. 

Three weeks later, when she had enough energy, she continued again. She cooked and she walked to the prison with her tiny little newborn tied onto her. Adoniram crawled to the prison door to meet her and his newborn daughter. He composed a poem for her, a poem that is a profound mix of his grief and his joy. This is an excerpt.

"Why open thy little eyes?

 What would my darling see? Thy sorrowing mother's bended form? Thy father's agony? There is a God on high, the glorious King of kings. It is He to whom thy mother prays, whose love she sits and sings. And to that gracious God, my darling, I commend. Be Thou, the helpless orphans stay, her Father and her Friend."

The war was going very badly for Burma, and the king was angry. He wanted the prisoners executed - all the foreigners. Well, Ann's hard work with the governor was paying off. He couldn't secure their release, but one thing he could do was stop an execution. Ann didn't know whether she could trust him. Then one day, an order was given, and suddenly all the prisoners were taken out of the prison and tied together, and they were marched out of the city. They were dragged brutally, and they were forced to march with bare feet, half starved to some remote area somewhere. Ann appealed again to the governor, but he said to her, "You cannot do anything more for your husband. Now just look after yourself." But Ann ignored this and she decided that she was going to follow Adoniram to wherever it was. 

The faithful cook, who was one of her servants, said that he would come with her, and Maung Ing, who had stayed with her, had also gathered information and he'd worked out where they'd been taken. He stayed behind to secure the mission house. Soon he managed to sneak into the prison. Because Adoniram couldn't take anything with him, Maung Ing snuck into the prison and managed to steal back the pillow containing the translation of the New Testament. 

So Anne, with tiny Maria tied onto her, the faithful cook and two Burmese children that she had adopted, made the long journey to the remote place, the town or village called Oung-pen-la. 

Adoniram himself had walked there. He had walked on bare feet across hot sand kilometer after kilometer, so much so that the blisters that formed around his feet had disappeared into raw skin. There was so much pain and suffering that Adoniram was tempted to end it all. He wanted so desperately to throw himself off the side of the road and into the river to end everything. It was that hard. But he had to consciously get rid of this temptation and realize that his purpose here had not been finished. And if the Lord wanted him to live, live he must. Many prisoners died on that journey from sheer exhaustion. 

When they finally arrived in this remote village, the prison was nothing but a shell. There was hardly anything there. There was hardly a roof, and they hardly needed chaining up because they were so exhausted - Adoniram himself couldn't even sit up. They couldn't walk, their feet were so mangled. In fact, he suffered permanent damage from this time, as did probably all of those prisoners. 

And then Ann arrived. He was so shocked to see her. He wept and wept. And he said, "Why have you come. I hoped you would not follow. You cannot live here." And it certainly did seem that way. But Ann did manage to live in this tiny remote village. She paid for a room that just had some straw over the dirt, and she managed to use that as a home for herself and the little children with her. She cooked, she did what she could to get food and pass it to Adoniram. 

But the strain of the previous months meant that she was very weak, and she became sick. Then her milk completely dried up and little Maria cried and cried. But Ann couldn't do anything, she couldn't even get up. Adoniram begged the jailers, and they softened enough to let Adoniram hold the little girl, and he would crawl from house to house, begging someone to give her a drop of milk. 

Well, the war was won by the British, and now, suddenly, the Burmese army needed a translator, and there was only one man that could do that job, and that was Adoniram Judson. So officials came in search of this man. They needed him to interpret for the negotiations and such things. But the jailers saw this as one last chance for extortion, so they wouldn't let Ann go. And Ann said, "I was never even a prisoner here. I came here of my own freewill." But they wouldn't let her go, and so she ended up having to hand over everything she had, every item of food, so that they would let her go. 

Adoniram was transferred up the river, and he spent six weeks with the various government officials translating. Finally, after that time, all the foreigners were formally released. This whole trial had lasted just under two years. And how either of them survived was a miracle, but they were both a shadow of their former selves. In fact, both of them were unrecognizable. 

Ann did reflect on all that happened. "Had they done the right thing? Had they been arrogant in insisting on staying? Why hadn't they listened to the advice? Perhaps they should have gone." But when she thought back and examined herself, she felt that, at the time, she acted in good conscience. They both did feel, as is written in Jeremiah chapter 10, "It is not in man who walks to direct his steps." But Ann did beg the Lord that these years of terrible hard affliction would not be in vain. Her favorite motto at this time, as she wrote in a letter, was simply this, "On Earth, we serve God. In Heaven, we praise Him." 

Now with British control, they had a lot more freedom, and they were optimistic at the new opportunities that were ahead of them. They started immediately working again. They decided to move and settle in Amhurst. They had hardly arrived there and settled when Adoniram again was presented with an opportunity. Now, with new government and all sorts of different situations, there would be another opportunity perhaps to speak to the king, to the royal family, and maybe secure more freedom to travel around the country. It would only be three or four months, and they would be reunited again. 

Well, as usual, travel was very unpredictable, and he left in July, hoping to get back in early November. But he wasn't back. On the 24th of November 1826 he received a very simple letter. "Mrs. Judson is dead". Ann had died a month before. Her health had been so broken by the suffering of the previous years, she had contracted an illness and died. When Adoniram returned in January, seven months after leaving, his little daughter didn't recognize who he was. He stood at her grave, and he wept, and he wept. He wrote, "She has been torn from her husband's bleeding heart. But infinite wisdom and love have presided as ever. Faith decides that it is all right, and the decision of faith, eternity will soon confirm." Little Maria, also malnourished, died exactly six months later. After this time, Adoniram sunk into a profound grief. He was a broken man. 

Two other missionaries had just arrived. George and Sarah Boardman arrived from America and they rallied around him and they tried to console him. But he was inconsolable. He had an iron will, however, and he was determined to continue his work. He translated the Bible, he wrote, but he retreated from people and went to live in the jungle all alone. This was a very dark time for Adoniram. He had no joy and he wrote that he did not feel the presence of the Lord at all. He tried to examine himself. He wanted to renounce everything, to see if even in being a missionary, there was some pride in him. He had suffered so much. It was a very, very dark time for his soul. But he did cling onto the hope he had, hope in his eternal God, and that hope was the anchor to his soul. 

He came through this time, and he wrote, "When the crown of life is set on our heads, and we know assuredly that we shall die no more, we shall make heaven's arches ring with songs of praise to Him who has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood." 

Eight years had passed, and in that time, George Boardman had died, leaving his wife, Sarah, alone with a baby son. Sarah, of course, was told to immediately return to America, it was simply not safe for a woman to stay. But she refused. She wanted to continue her husband's work. She ran a school in a remote hillside town amongst the Karen people. Together they had done so much traveling through the villages, speaking to people who were inquiring, wanting to know about the writings of the man called Jesus. She continued this alone. She travelled through jungle, through mountains, across rivers, with a little son tied on, she visited village after village. She spoke to people, she learned the dialects, she taught in the schools. She taught so well that even afterwards the Sarah Boardman method was referred to and suggested as a way of setting up a school. 

After three years of Sarah working all alone, she and Adoniram were brought together in a common grief, and also a shared vision, and they married. They continued their work together amongst many people and many of the Karen people and other tribes in those remote areas in Burma. 

And then Sarah too, was taken, and once again, Adoniram was alone. Adoniram finished the translation of the whole Bible, and this translation is still used today. This was a labor of 21 years - he poured his heart into this, because he saw it as a really heavy burden, a responsibility, to unfold to a whole nation the Word of God in their own language, the revelation of the Most High God. 

Adoniram did marry again later, and it was actually his wife, Emily, who conveyed a lot of his story to us, because Adoniram himself rarely spoke in public, particularly about the trials of those two years. It was so traumatic for him, he couldn't even talk about it. In the one time that he went back to America, he disappointed people by not talking more about his experiences and what things were like in Burma. Instead, he used to speak on the love of God. Adoniram's health, of course, was so poor - and he wasn't an old man by any means - but in his later years, he couldn't even speak above a whisper. In fact, if he did, he would cough blood. His feet had never fully recovered, his ankles were quite mangled, and he could never walk properly. 

In June 1850, he set out on a voyage, hoping to restore some of his health. But on that voyage, he died. He was 61 years old. One of the last sentences that he said was, "How few there are, who die so hard." His body was thrown into the sea in the Bay of Bengal. It was four months later that Emily found out.

Ann and Adoniram saw very little fruit for their labors during their lifetime. But God did work mightily amongst the Burmese people. First, there was just one convert. And then for many years there were only about 10, and then, maybe 18. But shortly after Adoniram's death, 38 years of labor in Burma, and the converts were said to number about 210,000. 

Ann and Adoniram were believers who the Lord gifted to build His church, and they presented their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. And they did that over and over again. I'm going to end with something very, very simple that Ann wrote, simple to write hard to live, but, boy, did she live it, and she lived it so clearly. 

"A little while and we are in eternity. Before we find ourselves there, let us do much for Christ."