NEW SHARON — The 200th anniversary of George Dana Boardman setting sail from Yarmouth to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the Karen people of Burma was celebrated on Saturday, May 17, with a service at his father Sylvanus Boardman’s gravesite in Village Cemetery on Main St.

“This is hallowed space,” Susan Crane, American Baptist Churches of Maine [ABCOM] West Association resource minister said. “God who sent George Dana Boardman to Burma, knowing he would not come home again is with us now.”

Crane gave a short prayer of thanks and celebration for the life of George Boardman.

John “Jack” Anderson, ABCOM West Association moderator then shared George Boardman’s story. “The best way to start out is with a quote from the man himself,” he said. “”The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” George Dana Boardman sowed his character without counting the call in service to the Karen people in Burma where he served as the first Baptist missionary from Maine to carry the gospel to a people Jesus sought to make his own.”

Judson Adoniram and Anne Hazeltine Judson sailed from Salem, Massachusetts, in 1810 to serve in India under the patronage of the Congregational Church, Anderson noted. They baptized each other during the trip, meaning they could no longer accept funds from the Congregational Church since they were now self-professed Baptists, he stated. George Boardman initially planned to be a missionary to India but later decided to serve in Burma instead, he noted.

“Among Christian evangelists who came north was one Sylvanus Boardman who came to serve the Baptist Church in Livermore in 1789 and served faithfully for over 25 years,” Anderson said. “Sylvanus Boardman hailed from Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard. He and his wife, Phoebe Dana Boardman raised five children. The first of their children to be born in Livermore they named George Dana Boardman.”

Born on Feb. 8, 1801, George grew up in Livermore, Anderson said. “George must have had an aptitude for learning because he attended Colby College in Waterville, and was the first to graduate from that new college in 1822,” he noted. “He served as tutor for a year at Colby and continued his education at Andover Theological Seminary. On Feb, 16, 1825, he was ordained a Baptist minister in West Yarmouth, Maine.”

On July 16, 1825, George and his wife Sarah sailed for Calcutta, where they arrived on Dec. 3, 1825, Anderson stated. “After acquiring the Burmese language, he entered upon his labors at Maulmain in May 1827 and founded a mission which became the central point of all the Baptist missions in Burma,” Anderson noted. “In April 1828, he established a mission at Tavoy. On the fifth of February of 1828, Boardman set out on a tour among the Karen villages and met with such success he determined on a systematic course of itinerary labor.”

Boardman’s trips caused his health to fail and he died from consumption [tuberculosis] on February 11, 1831, in Tavoy, Burma, where he was laid to rest, Anderson stated. “Meanwhile, back in Maine, Reverend Sylvanus Boardman was called to serve the Freewill Baptist Church here in New Sharon,” he said. “He died at the age of 87 and is buried here in the Village Cemetery.”

On his tombstone are engraved these words, “father of the late lamented George Dana Boardman,” Anderson noted.

“Many of you here are from West Association,” Crane said. “We are proud to have sent the first Baptist missionary to Burma. Many Karen people now live in the United States of America. Many of them have gathered in American Baptist churches, where they form their own churches within the larger church and and conduct their services in their native language. They are very much a part of us.”

Love is sent to those who are still in Burma, now Myanmar, and are suffering through terrible civil war, Crane stated. “I’d like to thank Sylvia Brown for making this beautiful wreath,” she said. “And Katie Reis, the selectman here in New Sharon who told me, “Yes, you may leave it here.””

“The wreath sits on a shepherd’s crook, and Jesus in John 10 reminds us that He is the great shepherd of the sheep, whose sheep know His voice,” Rev. Al Fletcher, ABCOM executive minister, stated. “This wreath is based on old dying vines out of which spring new life. And then, as you know, there’s nothing better than true blue, faithful to the end.”

The wreath is a circle, Fletcher continued. “The circle always reminds us of everlasting and eternal life,” he said. “Sylvia, thank you for putting together a most fitting wreath.”

Bonnie Higgins, pastor of North Livermore Baptist Church [which is the same church where Sylvanus Boardman once served], shared a Scripture reading from Psalm 67.

Fletcher concluded the ceremony with a word of prayer.

On Feb. 23 Fletcher surprised Higgins and her congregation with a plaque to honor George Dana Boardman, one of their own who left Maine to serve on the mission field 200 years ago.