Kairos Journal has a great collection of articles for leaders. Access is for those who are in pastoral/preaching ministry. Here is the article on Adoniram Judson.  My reflections and musings are italicized.

Not far from a huge statue of Buddha, Adoniram Judson led Maung Nau down into a Rangoon pond until they were waist deep. “A wondering crowd of gaily clad Burmans watched from the hill above.”¹ On the basis of Maung Nau’s written testimony that he was “taking refuge in the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ,”² Judson baptized this poor, 35-year-old timber worker. And this was no ordinary baptism; Nau was the missionary’s very first convert after seven years of service in South Asia. The date was June 27, 1819.

God has allowed me to share in several baptismal services. Sadly not all who have openly declared their faith in Christ have continued to follow Him. Baptism certainly doesn’t guarantee further obedience. According to the parameters of some denominations today Judson should have been called home – “nothing” appeared to be happening for 7 years. How short-sighted today’s strategists are often measuring God’s work with preconceived human formulas.

Intellectually gifted, Judson finished top of his class at Providence College (later Brown University) in 1807, and a few years later the faculty invited him to return. But much had changed in the intervening time. On December 2, 1808, Judson dedicated his life to Christ. Shortly thereafter, he felt the call to foreign missions and vowed to follow God’s leading. Yet, his Christian family was horrified, his mother and sister pleading with him not to go.

It always amazes me to see how only the individual can prove what God’s will is (Romans 12:1,2). You cannot know God’s will for my life. Judson’s family, while horrified, were operating on a human level even though they themselves were Christ-followers.

Two days after leaving his parents in February 1812, Judson married his fiancée Ann (Nancy) Hasseltine, and two weeks later they sailed for Calcutta, India. Judson spent the four-month journey wrestling with the Bible’s teaching on baptism and eventually adopted the Baptist understanding. This was not an easy decision because, after landing, his mission board cut off his support, and he was stranded until the American Baptist Missionary Union was founded.³

Praise God for people who wrestle with the Scriptures. Ask the hard questions, do the digging, make your own investigation. How much easier it would have been to keep these “convictions” to himself – look what it cost him to openly declare his biblical conviction of believer’s baptism. There are always pressure to “conform” to “not stand out” to go “soft” on one’s beliefs. Thank God for men like Judson who pay the price!

The Judsons moved on to Burma in July 1813, and Adoniram began learning the local language without any lexical help or English-speaking teacher. Remarkably, within three years he completed a grammar book, and in May 1817, he finished a translation of Matthew’s Gospel. But his ministry among the locals remained slow and difficult, and it was not until 1819 that he preached his first Burmese sermon and saw his first convert, the aforementioned Maung Nau.⁴

Throughout these years, he was continually harassed by Burmese officials. Then, in 1824, things went from bad to worse; war broke out between Burma and Britain and the local authorities threw Judson into the filthy, overcrowded “Death Prison” for 18 months on a charge of spying for the British. Fitted with shackles, Judson and the other prisoners had their legs elevated each night to prevent them from escaping.

With jests and jokes, [the guards] lowered [a] long horizontal bamboo pole from the ceiling, passed it between the fettered legs of the prisoners, re-secured it at the ends, and hoisted it up with the aid of the block-and-tackle. Gradually the feet of the prisoners rose into the air until only their shoulders and heads rested on the floor.⁵

Judson’s release in 1826 allowed him to return to ministry, but in his absence the small native church had scattered and the mission property had been destroyed. Then, while away on mission business later that year, he learned of his wife’s death from fever,⁶ and he fell into severe depression.⁷ As he sat by her grave in a foreign land, he wrote “God to me is the great unknown; I believe in him but I cannot find him.”⁸ Later in his life, Judson was to lose another wife, Sarah, who was weakened by childbirth and dysentery.⁹ Yet despite military, marital, and ministerial setbacks Judson continued with his translation, completing the entire Bible in 1834,¹⁰ and today, it remains the Bible of the Burmese church.

I admire this brutal transparency. God to me is the great unknown…. To listen to some preachers you would conclude they have “figured” God out. There is so much of life that is a mystery. O for a persevering faith that sees beyond the difficulties of today. God has not promised health, wealth and prosperity – but rather His grace in the midst of overwhelming weakness. (2 Corinthians chap 1)

The legacy of this faithful brother is enormous. Returning from a trip to Myanmar on the 150th anniversary of Judson’s translation, American missiologist Paul Borthwick¹¹ told of asking his host, Matthew Hla Win, what he knew of this remarkable man. The Burman replied, “Whenever someone mentions Judson’s name, tears come to my eyes, because we know what he and his family suffered . . . Today there are six million Christians in Myanmar, and every one of us traces our spiritual heritage to one man—the Reverend Adoniram Judson.”¹²

Now that is faithfulness and fruitfulness. Remember the words of Jesus “Unless a corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains ALONE, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.” We can have plastic encased seeds sitting as paper weights on our desks or that same seed, dieing in the ground can produce a crop. What kind of life will we live for God’s glory?