It had come to a desperate moment for missionary Adoniram Judson.
Young, married and halfway around the world from his Massachusetts home, he had landed at his chosen destination of India only to learn that the East India Company wanted him out.
The year was 1812 and missionaries, especially Americans, were seen merely as unwelcome meddlers.
It had been a troubling reception because while en route to the Far East, Judson had converted to a new faith, severing ties with his Congregationalist sponsors. He could not turn to them now for a new posting.
Leaving his church in favor of one he did not yet know had seemed like a manageable risk when he was aboard the ship, when in an inward-looking moment he found that the Baptist teachings he carried as reading material more closely resembled his idea of missionary work.
Jobless, without a sponsor and about to be kicked out of Asia, Judson and his wife were preparing to sail back to England when they learned of another boat sailing to a place they had never imagined visiting: Rangoon.
They took it.
That fumbling bit of history launched a mission to Burma that, nearly 200 years later, claims thousands of Baptist followers amid the predominantly Buddhist nation now known as Myanmar.
Judson's legacy took on added dimensions this year when the U.S. State Department announced in January that it would allow 4,000 people living in Thailand who had fled political persecution in Burma to come to America.
About 300 of them, mostly from an ethnic minority known as the Karen, are expected to resettle in Minnesota this year.
Parishoners at a Baptist church in downtown St. Paul have spent the summer welcoming the descendants of Judson's converts.
"It's just been a remarkable impact on the church," said the Rev. Bill Englund, pastor at First Baptist on Wacouta Street. "It's the thing that's on the front burner here now. We don't know exactly how to respond to it, except that a lot of people at the church believe it is mission that has come to our door."
The church has for the past few years been a center for the Karen community in Minnesota, estimated at less than 500 since the families began arriving four or five years ago. A third of the church's 160 regular members were Karen before this summer's arrivals, said Englund.
"In June we were introducing 20 to 30 new people to the church every week," he said. "There are some people that are looking around and saying, 'Is this becoming a Burmese church? There are some people who have entered into quite meaningful relationships. It's threatening to me to think how can we make the worship service meaningful?"
The Sunday service includes Karen songs and a reading in the Karen language, and special classes offered at the church have taught new arrivals how to adapt to American life.
"The thing that's happened here at First Baptist is that there's such a sweet spirit about many of these people," said Englund. "Many times people will give open testimony in church about how God has provided for them, even now how God has led them to this place," said Englund.
Joel Luedtke, director of refugee services for the Minnesota Council of Churches, helped some of the first Karen families resettle in Minnesota four years ago. He said the Karen have strengthened First Baptist.
"They essentially came to that congregation at a time when they were struggling in some ways, losing membership. I think there might have been growing pains along the way but in some ways they have revitalized that congregation," he said.
A quiet church service in St. Paul is welcome change for many of the arriving families. The Karen have warred off and on with the repressive Burmese regime since the end of World War II. Sporadic fighting continues in some areas between the Burmese Army troops and the Karen National Union (KNU), one of the main rebel factions, according to a report from Human Rights Watch issued this year.
Some of St. Paul's Karen community include high-ranking members of the KNU, such as Saw Josiah, who was on the KNU's central committee. He's now co-chair of the Minnesota American Karen Society, which recently celebrated its third anniversary helping other Karen families.
"We have 41 families here now," he said. "Our group right now is very busy."
"It's been difficult," said Saw (Rocky) Kaw Khu, who owns a house on St. Paul's East Side. "I think this is much easier for the job, but housing was very difficult when we first arrived," he said.
The Karen have found help from Lao Family, a nonprofit organization in St. Paul that was originally formed to help arriving Hmong refugees. Local resettlement agencies including World Relief, the International Institute, Lutheran Social Service and the Minnesota Council of Churches have sponsored some of the families.
Danny Loo, the former intelligence chief for the KNU and a veteran of dozens of battles, arrived in Minnesota two months ago with his family after a year of living illegally in Bangkok.
The Thai government has not officially recognized the Karen living in Thailand as refugees, and in some cases have deported them back to Burma.
"All of the Karen in Thailand were living like this," said Saw Kaw Khu. "Compared with the life there, this [in America] is the real freedom. Like here he can wear his dress, the Karen costume, but in Thailand you can't do that. You can't even speak your language, you have to pretend to be Thai."
[Negotiations late last year between the Burmese government and the Karen National Union, one of the main rebel factions, led to a verbal agreement on a cease-fire. The talks have stalled recently, however, and no new discussions are scheduled concerning the return of Karen families currently living in unofficial refugee camps in Thailand, according to the U.S. State Department.
The camps are home to about 140,000 refugees from Burma, and this year's resettlement has been viewed by some as a precursor to a larger exodus of the refugees if they are not allowed to return to their home villages.
A spokesman for the U.S. State Department said no such plans have been agreed to yet.
That a church in St. Paul came to be at the center of this story doesn't surprise Englund as much as remind him of his church's history. His own Baptist upbringing was filled with stories of Burma because his pastor had formerly worked there, he said. Englund said he finds some parallels even to the story of First Baptist, which was founded in 1849 by a group of missionaries that included Harriet Bishop.
And, of course, Judson.
"When these people came as refugees, many of them had come with this reverence for Judson and a strong Baptist belief. Some of them coming were more Baptist than we were.
"That's affected us with an appreciation for people who have gone out on mission."