Paul Ashton Vick
Where the Cotton grows
A missionary calling leads a Baptist family on a fateful journey to China leaving a lasting legacy
Sole survivor of 1947 plane crash pens riveting memoir
In Where the Cotton Grows: A Missionary Calling Leads a Baptist Family on a Fateful Journey to China Leaving a Lasting Legacy, Paul Vick of Rochester, New York, recalls the lasting legacy of his missionary parents and his lifelong journey to find his own identity and path. Paul was only 16 months old when a plane carrying himself, his parents, and his 3-year-old brother crashed in a cotton field in a remote area of China in 1947. Robert and Dorothy Vick were young Baptist missionaries on their way to their first assignment. Only Robert and Paul were found alive, and Robert lived just long enough to dictate his final wish that Paul be returned to his grandparents in Rochester, New York, for them to raise.
“Where the Cotton Grows is more than a moving story; it is an invitation to each of us to revisit our own lives and family journeys. Perhaps through our reading and reflection, we too will uncover new understandings of our own past that will reshape our future.”
“Throughout this deeply personal narrative that is so much more than a memoir, the son of commissioned American Baptist missionaries graces us with glimpses of love, family, faith, strength, and resilience that shaped his sense of personhood. Nurtured and raised by loving grandparents, aunts, and uncles, the author’s travels always bring him back to Rochester, New York. In Where the Cotton Grows, Paul Vick comes home to himself and, like his parents, prays that his life will continue to bear fruit in his service to church and world. ”
