The Prisoner of Ava Who Built a Nation's Faith

In 1824, Adoniram Judson lay in chains on the floor of Ava Prison in Burma, his ankles lashed to a bamboo pole hoisted so high that only his shoulders and head touched the ground. Mosquitoes blackened his skin. Fever came in waves. He had labored in Burma for eleven years with almost nothing to show for it — a handful of converts, a child buried in foreign soil, and a half-finished translation of the Bible into Burmese hidden in a hard pillow his wife Ann smuggled past the guards.

The Burmese court considered him disposable. Mission supporters back in Boston wondered if the whole venture had been a waste. For twenty-one months, Judson endured that prison, sustained by Ann's relentless advocacy and a stubborn confidence that the Lord had not given him over to death.

He survived. He finished the translation. And that single Burmese Bible — the life's work of a man the world had written off — became the foundation of an entire national church. Today, millions of Myanmar Christians trace their faith back to the prisoner of Ava.

Psalm 118 knows this pattern intimately: "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." The Almighty specializes in taking what others discard — broken missionaries, failed ventures, impossible odds — and building something marvelous upon them. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His steadfast love endures forever, even through the longest prison night.