FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 2023 AT 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
CVW Long Lake Public Library
Presentation and book available to purchase before and after the presentation.
“ 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.
More than sixty years after the crash and his retirement from a successful career as an attorney, Paul resolved to return to China, to find answers to two questions haunting him. What caused his parents to take a perilous journey to a war-torn country, exposing themselves and their two young children to so great a risk? What impact did their lives, and the lives of so many others called to serve during a turbulent period in China’s history, have on the China of today?
The plane crash made international news from Shanghai to San Francisco to New York City and parts in between as readers were caught up in the intrigue of why the plane crashed, one of several recent crashes in remote China. Photos of the orphaned toddler Paul Vick, with his legs in traction in a hospital in Shanghai, pierced the hearts of readers everywhere.
Robert and Dorothy Vick were young Baptist missionaries on their way to their first assignment when a wing of the plane caught fire. Robert jumped from the plane while tightly gripping Paul in his arms. Robert lived just long enough to dictate his final wish that Paul be returned to his grandparents in Rochester for them to raise.
“Twelve years ago, in a board meeting of International Ministries, I first heard the powerful story of a young survivor who had lost his American missionary parents in a plane crash in rural China. I never imagined how fully that story would come alive—covered in real flesh and tears—when I committed to travel with the author to help him fill in the missing details and learn about his parents and that awful crash through hearing the recollections of direct and indirect witnesses. I still remember the powerful sense of God’s presence as we stood in the field where the plane crash had occurred.
“ ‘Paul, we will leave the video camera on but we will give you a moment alone to talk to your family.’ I stood at a distance and prayed that that moment would bring the author closure—or more than closure—a sense of reunion with his family.
“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.” (Benjamin Shun Lai Chan, Area Director of East and South Asia, International Ministries of American Baptist Churches USA)
Paul A. Vick is an ordained American Baptist Minister and retired as partner in charge of the Family Wealth Planning Department of the Rochester office of Phillips, Lytle LLP. He currently serves as treasurer of the board of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (also known as International Ministries) as well as chair of the finance committee of the board of trustees of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. Paul also serves on the board of the American Baptist Churches of Rochester Genesee Region of the American Baptist Churches USA and is a member of Immanuel Baptist Church in Rochester, New York. He has acted as legal counsel for many civic and religious service organizations.
Paul is a 1967 graduate of Kalamazoo College in Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts degree; a 1971 graduate of Colgate Rochester Divinity School with a Master of Divinity degree; and a 1975 graduate of University of Buffalo Law School with a Juris Doctor degree. Paul has made two trips to China. A video called The Vineyard documents Paul’s most recent trip and can be viewed on YouTube.
Paul resides in Rochester, New York, with his wife Joyce Miller Vick. They have three children and seven grandchildren. This is his first book. “