First up on my reading from my Christmas stash was Dave Gable’s short memoir, Life Takes – Book 1: Felton and the Farm. A delightful read by a lifelong storyteller, Book 1 draws on Dave’s own experiences growing up on a southeast Pennsylvania farm mid-20th century. I’d planned to read one brief story a day – spread out the fun. But after zipping through a third of the book the first sitting, I ditched the plan.
What stopped me was a scene on page 60. Dave describes his mother’s piano bench, which served as her “altar”:
“Life on a farm keeps you pretty close to home, with little travel. Mom’s prayers, though, went round the world. We heard regular mention of the Boltons in Asia, the Longs in India, the Sorbos in Indonesia.”
The Boltons in Asia? Was Dave writing about Leonard & Ada Bolton, missionaries in the 1920s-60s? Or had his mother been praying for Bob & Eve Bolton who went out in the 50s to Taiwan? I knew Bob, who had grown up in southwest China with my own mother. In the early 90s, Kim and I overlapped Bob & Eve in Taiwan for two years – our first and their last.
Immediately I texted Joy Bolton Kelly, who lives the next county over from where Dave had grown up, the same county her Grandma Ada was born in. Joy ordered Dave’s book that night. Joy, Bob & Eve’s daughter, has just updated a book out of print since 1984. China Call: Miracles Among the Lisu tells the story of her grandparents, Leonard & Ada.
Originally written by Leonard, her parents and aunt, Joy has added new material and photos to this latest edition of China Call. I read the original back in the day; this new edition awaits me in my Christmas stash.
I love reading memoirs and biographies, especially stories of people who have crossed borders and lived lives of adventure. Such was the case with the Boltons all.
But it was also true of Dave’s mother. While she never strayed far off the farm, at that piano bench she journeyed the world. No telling how her prayer life impacted the Boltons in Asia. Certainly, those prayers propelled Dave on an amazing journey of his own.
While Dave traveled abroad on occasion, his ministry was first to university students across the U.S., then to church planters in California and to world missionaries based out of Southern Cal. I got my start in Chi Alpha Campus Ministries under his leadership, then felt his support while he & Millie pastored in Fresno. Dave’s mother’s prayers traveled farther than she could ever have imagined.
In the movie, Shadowlands, the character C. S. Lewis says, “We read to know we’re not alone.” I read to discover how connected I am to this vast universe of an enterprise God has created. Reading has a way of doing that. So, my friends, does prayer.
Want to connect? Go here.
Photo: my Christmas ‘24 stash
Excellent. It is amazing how interconnected the believers were in the early 1900’s. The stories are so intertwined through prayer and those who influenced the next to impact the world and the future.