Introduction

Biography

Son of a Me­tho­dist fa­ther and Quak­er mo­ther, Ball was an As­sem­blies of God min­is­ter for ov­er se­ven de­cades.

He lost his fa­ther at age eight, and as a child suf­fered from spi­nal men­in­gi­tis, arth­ri­tis, and lung prob­lems. When a doc­tor ad­vised seek­ing a dri­er cli­mate, his mo­ther moved the fa­mi­ly to Am­is­tad, New Mex­ico, in 1907.

They stayed there a year be­fore an un­suc­cess­ful at­tempt to move to an Am­er­ican set­tle­ment in south­ern Mex­ico. Flood­ing stopped their co­vered wa­gon be­fore they could reach Mex­ico, so they bought 10 acres of land in Ri­car­do, Tex­as, and found­ed their home­stead.

Ball came to Christ at age 14, while still in high school in Ri­car­do. He con­duct­ed his first ev­an­ge­li­cal meet­ing short­ly af­ter: two peo­ple at­tend­ed, the start of a long and fruit­ful min­is­try.

In 1924, Ball found­ed the Ca­sa Evan­gé­li­ca de Pub­li­ca­ci­on­es in San An­ton­io, Texas. Two years lat­er, he op­ened the La­tin Am­er­ican Bi­ble In­sti­tute in San An­ton­io. He pub­lished a news­pa­per, the Luz Apo­stó­li­ca, and pre­pared hym­nals, one of which, the 1916 Him­nos de Glo­ría, which even­tu­al­ly sold ov­er one mil­lion co­pies through­out the Span­ish speak­ing world. He would lat­er pub­lish five more hym­nals.

Ball found­ed what became Life Pub­lish­ers In­ter­na­tion­al, and wrote train­ing ma­ter­ials for new pas­tors. In 1929, when the Mexi­can con­ven­tion of the As­sem­blies of God in Mex­ico be­came the La­tin Am­er­ican Dis­trict Coun­cil, Ball be­came su­per­in­ten­dent.