Biography Myanmar Christian Writers

Tha Byu, Ko

(b, Bassein, Burma ca. 1778; d. Sandoway, Burma 9Sep 1840)
First Karin Baptist Christian and ardent evangelist and missionary.

    Born in U Twa village near Bassein, Ko Tha Byu lived with his parents until he was 15. He was then a "wicked and ungovernable boy," and when he left his parents he became a robber and a murderer. According to his own confessions, he murdered no fewer than 30 of his fellow countrymen. Heavily in debt, he was sold as a slave in the Moulmein bazaar and bought by Shwe Be, a Burmese Christian and disciple of Adoniram Judson" (the first American Baptist missionary to Myanmar). Shwe Be tried to teach him but made little progress. Later, Judson took charge of him and taught him to read and write.

   In the 22 Apr 1827 entry in his journal, Judson recorded, "Maung Tha Byu, a poor man belonging to Maung Shwe Be". Judson described Tha Byu as a"a Karen by race, imperfectly acquainted with the Burmese language, and possessed of very ordinary ability. He has been about us several months and we hope that his mind, which is exceedingly dark and ignorant, has begun to discern the excellency of the religion of Christ." Judson recorded that Tha Byu had "a diabolical temper, " but after much prayer and hard work there was a breakthrough.

After he had been taught the Christian doctrines, Tha Byu applied for membership in the then small Burmese church of Moulmein. The matter was postponed a while, and later he accompanied George Dana Boardman (the first American Baptist missionary to the Karens of Burma) to Tavoy, where he was baptised on 16 May 1828. From the day of his baptism to the day of his death, he never slackened his labors in preaching Christ in places where the Gospel had never been heard, from Tavoy to Thailand, from Martaban to the borders of Chiang Mai from Rangon to Arakan. Tha Byu became a faithful and successful missionary, a distinguished instrument in the hands of God to arouse the attention of Karen race to baptized, he lived to see hundreds upon hundreds follow in his steps, in whose conversion he had played a significant part.

    After his baptism, Tha Byu asked for permission to go and tell the little he knew to his Karen friends. After hearing Tha Byu, people traveled two days or more to visit teacher Boardman in Tavoy and learn more of Christianity. Tha Byu was an unceasing and tireless pioneer preacher, an itinerant evangelist. A contemporary mission worker said of him, "Ko Tha Byu was an ignorant man; yet he did more good than all of us, for God was with him". He was never ordained. "He was not adapted for the pastoral office," cryptically remarked Francis Mason the first translator of the Bible" into Karen.

    Rheumatism and blindness stopped Tha Byu's itinerancy. In Feb 1840, he accompanied Rev Abbott and his family (the first missionaries to the Karens of Bassein) to Sandoway. On arrival, he was sent to a small Karen village nearby, where he remained until his death on 9 Sep 1840. No mound marks his grave, but the eternal mountains are his monument, and the Christian villages upon the hillsides are his epitaph.

    God fully and richly blessed Tha Byu's ministry. After 12 years (1828-40) of his labor, there were 1270 members belonging to Karen Baptist churches scattered over a large area in dozens of villages. To the last, he did not have one anxious though about his future. When he was asked, his usual reply was, "God will preserve me".

Biography
Mason, Francis, Ko Tha Byu, the first Karen Christian (1983). Ya Ba Toh Loh, Memoir of Saw Ko Tha Byu (In Karen) (1950)

CLIFFORD KYAW DWE

ANNA MAY SAY PA
A Dictionary of ASIAN Christianity
Scott W. Sunquist, editor
David Wu Chu Sing and John Chew Hiang Chea, associate editors.
@2001 Wm, B Berdmans Publishing Co. Michigan, USA