William A. Shell, Reformed Bible College professor and minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod, whose father and grandfather were Russian army officers, tells his unusual life story.

A Living Doctrine

As we carefully read the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God, we find that the totality of Scripture reveals to us a God who is sovereign and in control of all things in heaven and on earth. That sovereignty and control are seen not only in creation and redemption, but for the true children of God particularly evident in His providence. Professor Louis Berkhof has defined providence as “that work of God in which He preserves all His creatures, is active in all that happens in the world, and directs all things to their appointed end” (Summary of Christian Doctrine, page 55).

The Prophet Daniel expressed providence in this way in his prayer: “Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are His. He changes times and seasons; He sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him” (Daniel 2:20–22, NIV). King Nebuchadnezzar finally acknowledged God’s sovereignty and providence when he said, “His dominion is an eternal dominion ; His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases wit h the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him: ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:34–35, NIV).

This biblical teaching on providence is not merely a doctrinal matter reserved for theologians, but it is an extremely practical aspect of God’s work in the lives of His people. When we give testimony to what God has done in our lives, we are acknowledging both His sovereignty in saving us from our sins and His providence in guiding our lives throughout our time on earth to their appointed events and end. The work of God’s marvelous, gracious providence is particularly evident, I believe, in my own life.

I believe that the events that led to my birth and my life since that time are all the result of God’s providential acting among the nations of men, bringing to pass the series of events in my ancestry and in my own life that He has planned and purposed. As I look back on what has happened, I see His sovereign hand in the events, both pleasant and unpleasant, that have come to pass. And it has all been working for His glory.

My father and grandfather were both officers in the Imperial Russian Army, the former a lieutenant colonel and the latter a lieutenant general, whose military careers came to a sudden end with the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917. When the Czarist and Republican cause was lost, my grandfather fled into exile to Yugoslavia, while my father, who was still single, kept fighting with the White Russian forces against the Communists (“Red Russians”) for the next number of months. Finally the Communists prevailed and my father escaped into exile in China.

The country of China in the early 1920s was undergoing its own first experiments in democracy following the Sun Yat-sen revolution and became a refuge for the large community of “White Russians” who had fled their homeland following the Communist Revolution. These refugees readily found jobs with the Chinese government and the other western companies operating in China. My father worked with the customs service for the next two decades.

Meanwhile the hand of God’s providence reaches across two continents and ties European Poland with Asia’s China. The Imperial Government of China had invited my maternal grandfather to come and help them build the Manchurian (northern province) railroad and that would become his life’s work till his death in China. In 1912 my mother was born in Harbin, one of the major cities of Manchuria and there she would meet my father 18 years later as she became a secretary in the customs department in which my father worked. They were married in 1930 and a year later went on a trip to Europe to visit my paternal grandfather in Yugoslavia and relatives in Poland.

I was born on John Calvin’s birthday in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1931. Our family returned to China and my first years were spent in Shanghai. Here we lived in the International Settlement, associating with westerners, and I attended British schools in my early years, with Russian and Polish being the languages spoken in our home. Two wars, the First Sino-Japanese War in 1932 and the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, were fought around us, but we were preserved from danger. In 1939 my parents again visited Europe and we found ourselves in Poland toward the end of the summer of that significant year.

We were on a train from Poznan to Warsaw on the day that Hitler invaded Poland and started World War II. We were trapped in Warsaw with the Germans coming in from the west and the Soviets from the east. Following heavy bombing and shelling the capital city fell to the Germans, and in the midst of great destruction and loss of life we were again preserved from harm. My father through intense negotiations that lasted several months was able to get the whole family out of Poland and out of Europe, returning to Shanghai in the spring of 1940. He was then transferred to Tientsin in North China, where he died a year later.

Shortly thereafter my mother met a bachelor American banker and they were married in August 1942. In the meantime Pearl Harbor had come, we were already in Japanese held territory, so with our new family connections we were “enemies” and spent the duration of World War II in Asia in a Japanese civilian concentration camp. We were relieved by American parachute troops two days after the war was over, and again God had preserved us through those trying experiences. So my mother and I first came to the United States in December 1945.

Conversion

We settled in Dallas, Texas, where my stepfather’s relatives lived and my mother and I were first exposed to people who were Protestants and who believed a Book called the Holy Bible. I was then 14 years of age and had never heard the Gospel. My new relatives were faithful in presenting the Gospel to us, but with my earlier upbringing in Russian Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism I kept rejecting what they said. The thing that I could not reject, however, was the consistency of their Christian lives. These people lived what they said they believed. So God was using the testimony of their lives and their words to make an impression on me as the Holy Spirit began working on my stubborn heart.

I finished high school in Texas and began college at Baylor University. In the providence of God I drew a Christian roommate, who also testified to me of Jesus Christ both by word and life. Again I could reject what he said, but I could not reject what he was like in his daily life. Now neither my relatives nor my roommate were perfect, but there was a consistency in their lives and a love that I could not understand.

College became a bore to me and the Korean War came along to stir up my military heritage and zeal. I joined the U.S. Navy and was off to fight another war. In very early 1953 I was stationed in Pensacola, Florida, when my step-father’s mother died in Dallas, Texas. Since my parents were again overseas, I felt it my duty to go there for the funeral and hitchhiked to Texas from Florida. At the funeral service I was surprised by the opening words of the pastor when he said, “This woman, whose body lies before us, is now with Jesus Christ in heaven!” To my inner question of “How can you say that?” he replied, “Because she had trusted in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Saviour.” He then proceeded to give a very simple biblical Gospel message, and at that funeral service God saw fit to open my eyes unto Himself, caused me to be born again, and I received Jesus Christ as my own Lord and Saviour as well.

The providence of God had preserved me through various adventures on three continents and brought me safe to this funeral parlor in Dallas to give me the gift of eternal life. As I look back on my life, even in times of war and great danger, I see the hand of the Lord in all that has transpired. He perfectly arranged for all things to occur as they did and brought me to the place where He would give me new life.

Christian Service

During my last two years in the Navy I was followed up by The Navigators, a Christian service organization working with the military and collegians, then entered seminary a year after graduation from college. I finished at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, ministered as an intern in an Orthodox Presbyterian Church in California, met and married my wife, enrolled at the Wheaton College Graduate School, and began teaching in a Christian high school in 1964. I pastored an OPC church in Waterloo, Iowa for three years, then returned to teaching. In 1973 I entered the Christian publishing field with an editing job in Wheaton, then became the managing editor of NavPress of The Navigators for four years, working and compiling on a total of over 40 books during the past eight years. In 1979 I returned to teaching, being appointed Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and Extension at Reformed Bible College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Throughout my years as a Christian I have again had ample evidence of the providence of God as He has guided me in my studies and in the ministry He has committed to me. My whole life has been a testimony to what Paul wrote: “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose” (Philippians 2:13, NIV). The key to living practically under the umbrella of the providence of God is willing submission to His clearly revealed will given to us in the Scriptures (cf. Heidelberg Catechism, Question and Answer 1).