Where the Cotton Grows by Paul Ashton Vick

Author:Paul Ashton Vick [Vick, Paul Ashton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paul A. Vick Management Trust
Published: 2021-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

Robert Vick chronicled his family’s first few weeks in China in this letter to friends Bob and Beth Bell.

Word finally arrived that the long-awaited flight would be leaving Shanghai on January 28, 1947.

Chapter 12

The Worth of a Life

“The worth of a life is not to be measured by its length but by the warmth of its devotion and the quality of its service to a great cause.”

That inspirational quote, unattributed, is one of several quotations and scripture references in a booklet produced as a memorial to my parents and published by the American Baptist Society. On the cover is the title The Worth of a Life in English with the same written in Chinese characters.

Inside the booklet, the young adult faces of my parents peer out in formal head shots. There’s also a photo of the four of us; my mother holds me, about nine months old. She is smiling broadly, as she often did in photos, as she stands next to my father. My father wears a more serious expression as he was also wont to do. Teddy stands in front of him, and my father’s long left arm reaches down to hold Teddy’s hand. The photograph was taken at summer camp in 1946.

My parents and Teddy were buried in Hankow on Monday, February 3, 1947 in what the booklet called “a lovely service.”

“Everything was done reverently and unhurriedly as though in a cathedral, and through the service I know that God spoke to one troubled soul. Afterward I heard that more than one had this experience. My burden of horror was lifted. The festering, unanswerable ‘Why?’ fell back before the assurance that even out of this evil, God can bring some good to His church—in China and Canada and the United States. I, too, felt the triumph when the challenge rang out, ‘Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?’”

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