God Preserves A People

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

The Karen people inhabited northern Thailand and the highlands of Burma (Myanmar) for generations.  A prophecy that was part of their oral traditions stated that the Creator God, Y'wa, had once given them a book that contained His truth. They believed that their forefathers had lost this book long ago as a result of their disobedience to Him.  Tradition told that the missing book would eventually be returned to them by a white brother who would come across the ocean.  Despite not knowing the Bible, they sung old hymns about Y'wa being everlasting, holy, and the creator of everything. This prophecy kept alive a desire for the restoration of truth.

Adoniram Judson comes to Burma in 1813, and opened his first public preaching place in 1819. For seven years he labored among the Burmese Buddhists, working on a translation of the Bible into Burmese, with only one convert, Ko Thay-byu, who was a robber and criminal.  Upon conversion, Ko Thay-byu went from village to village telling his people that he had found the white man and the lost book.  The mention of the one true God who created everything astonished the Karen people and they came pouring down the mountains and were baptized by the thousands. They joyously exclaimed, "This is the book of Y'wa that we have been waiting for!" The prophecy and the entrance of Scripture were almost identical.

Don Richardson wrote about the Karen people in his book “Eternity in their Hearts.”