A freed slave, Ko Tha Byu, was an illiterate, surly man who spoke almost no Burmese.
Tha Byu killed at least thirty Burmese robbers & thieves those who tortured his parents and his villagers when he was teen.
His whole life career was boxing until he got old and lost the fight then was enslaved by his opponent and got sold to a Burmese man Maung Shwe Bay.
[3] While the Boardmans and Ko Tha Byu were penetrating the jungles to the south, Adoniram Judson shook off a paralyzing year-long siege of depression that overcame him after the death of his wife, Ann, and set out alone on long canoe trips up the Salween River into the tiger-infested jungles to evangelize the northern Karen.
Between trips he worked untiringly at his lifelong goal of translating the whole Bible into the Burmese language.
When Francis Mason, linguist and pioneer to the "heartland" of the Karen tribes, was forced home by ill health in 1857, he decided to turn over the district to his ablest helper, Saw Quala, in whom he had developed the utmost confidence.
In the Karen, Saw, he astutely discerned a leader for a second stage of Christian outreach in Burma.
Within two years of the time that Mason turned the district over to him, Saw Quala had increased the number of assistants working with him from 3 to 11; they had established 27 new churches; and had baptized 1,880 adult converts.
Dr. Mason also pioneered in answering the convention's second call – a request for a more usable translation of the Bible.
Not only did Mason encourage the use of Karen evangelists, he, along with Jonathan Wade, made the significant decision to promote a version of the Bible in the Karen language to supplement what was already being done with the Bible in the national language, Burmese.
Men's Department According to a census published by the association in 2023, it claimed 1,906 churches and 319,070 members.