William Carey | Cobbler to a Missionary | Missionary to India | Serampur | Father of Modern Missions

William Carey, from cobbler to a missionary! True and inspiring stories!

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Biography:
Carey, William (1761-1834)
English Baptist Bible translator, pastor, and father of the Serampore mission

William Carey is often called the Father of Modern Missions (1761-1834). He was of lowly English birth but with a brilliant mind. While still in his teens, he could read the Bible in six languages and later, as a missionary in India, translated and printed parts or all of the Bible in 36 languages and dialects.

He was a plodder by his own admission, but a very stubborn one. He said, "If I begin a thing, I must go through with it." Would to God more were like that.

As a teenager of 14 he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and through the faithful witness of a co-apprentice, John Warr, he was convicted of his sin. At age 17 he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. The young cobbler studied the Scriptures avidly in the original languages, having taught himself Greek and Hebrew. Isaiah became a favorite of his, and particularly chapter 54 stirred his heart. He began to expound the Word and in due time pastored several Baptist churches as well as taught in a village school.

It was also determined that India would be the first field, but who would go? Isaiah 54:6a leaped out at Carey. Those first six words "For the Lord hath called thee..." constituted a call to Carey. He left all to follow that call. January 17, 1793, Carey wrote a letter to his father, a portion of which reads, "I hope, dear father, you may be enabled to surrender me up to the Lord for the most arduous, honorable, and important work that ever any of the sons of man were able to engage in. I have many sacrifices to make. I must part with a beloved family and a number of most affectionate friends, but I have set my hand to the plough. I remain your dutiful son, W. Carey."

Carey had a consuming concern for the souls of men. Once while still in England, he was criticized for preaching to the neglect of his shoe business. He replied "My real business is to preach the Gospel and win lost souls. I cobble shoes to pay expenses." While teaching, he would weep as he studied a map of his own making and say to his students, "The people living in these areas are pagans. They're lost—hundreds of millions of them not knowing the Blessed Savior."

Today there are more than six times as many people in the world than when William Carey went to India in 1793. In sheer numbers, there are also more non-Christians than ever before. If it was a most arduous, honorable, and important work in Carey's life, it is even more so today. Although there are more than six times as many people on planet earth as in the year Carey went to India in 1793, the command is the same—all the world, every creature. Would to God we had more men and women with hearts hot for souls.

Carey was joined by William Ward, a printer, and Joshua and Hanna Marshman, teachers. Mission finances increased considerably as Ward began securing government printing contracts, the Marshmans opened schools for children, and Carey began teaching at Fort William College in Calcutta.

In December 1800, after seven years of missionary labor, Carey baptized his first convert, Krishna Pal, and two months later, he published his first Bengali New Testament. With this and subsequent editions, Carey and his colleagues laid the foundation for the study of modern Bengali, which up to this time had been an "unsettled dialect."

Carey continued to expect great things; over the next 28 years, he and his pundits translated the entire Bible into India's major languages: Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese, and Sanskrit and parts of 209 other languages and dialects.

He also sought social reform in India, including the abolition of infanticide, widow burning (sati), and assisted suicide. He and the Marshmans founded Serampore College in 1818, a divinity school for Indians, which today offers theological and liberal arts education for some 2,500 students.

He was 40 years in India, never returning to his homeland England. He died June 9, 1834. At his own request, his grave marker had only his name, dates of birth and death, and two lines of an Isaac Watts' hymn:

A wretched, poor, and helpless worm,

On Thy kind arm I fall.
🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

References:👇
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[maryr]

Looking forward to more missionary stories.. Also it will be good if you can tag them under a playlist

[sujn]

There are strong evidence that proves Jesus turned to India he was in Kashmir as a follower of Hindu and Buddhist sadhus and got enlightenment, In Bible the whereabout of Jesus between his age 12 to 29 is not known