Russell, James Smith (1913–2008) and Carolyn (Boyle Hall) (1917–2003)

James and Carolyn Russell were devoted missionaries who spread the gospel though persecuted in several locations around the world.

Early Life

James S. Russell was born on March 14, 1913, in Toronto, Ontario, the fifth child of John Hendry (1872-948) and Jeanie Jarvie (1871-1941) Russell. Six years earlier, they had emigrated from Scotland, and the family treasured the poetry and music of their homeland. John and Jeannie named their fifth son James, but his warm personality led others to call him “Jimmy” throughout his life. He much preferred “Jim,” though, and carefully ensured that no child of his carried a diminutive name.

Within months, the family of seven moved to a two-room log cabin they built as pioneers on a homestead in northern Ontario. There, Jim Russell learned to walk on the uneven plank logs of the floor. To support the family, John often worked elsewhere for a logging company, and he was absent when a forest fire swept towards the cottage. Lacking communication with the outside world, Jeannie organized a desperate defense, sending her twelve-year-old daughter, Mae, and her older son, Robert, onto the roof with wet rags to extinguish the sparks landing there while she and the younger boys Jack and Bill attempted to draw water from the well and douse flames on the walls and ground. Their vigorous actions, plus a providential change in the direction of the wind, spared the family.

After World War I began, the family returned to Toronto. In 1916, despite his middle age and the needs of his wife and five young children, John volunteered for the Canadian Expeditionary Force’s Forestry Brigade, formed to cut forests in Europe for vitally-needed wood. He served in France and Belgium as a quartermaster and was well back from the actual fighting. In his absence, Jeannie decided to attend a series of Adventist evangelistic meetings held by Elder J. W. McComas. She took her children. A devout woman who had sensed God’s protection, she and Mae were baptized and joined the church; her sons followed in baptism in later years. All her life, she clung to Adventism with deep devotion as did every one of her children.

In the 1920s, the family moved to a fruit farm near Port Hope, Ontario, which they called Monkey Mountain. Unable to subsist on its small eight acres, Russell’s parents also cared for another farm some distance away and lived there during the work week. His sister and brothers had left home, and this left Russell, a schoolboy 13 years old, alone during the work week. He milked the cow, cared for the chickens, prepared his own food, and went to school all without electricity or motorized transport. Thus, from his childhood, Russell understood the importance of hard work and self-sufficiency. Perhaps he drew from his work and service and from the people he met in everyday life, the happiness and relaxation that others found in recreation and entertainment.¹

At the age of 15 and with just a few dollars in his pocket from his father, Russell set off for South Lancaster, Massachusetts, to seek a Christian education and a better life for himself. He lived with his sister, Mae, and helped with the household chores for her family of three small children and attended South Lancaster Academy. During breaks, Russell hitchhiked the hundreds of miles to return home. On one occasion as evening approached, he got stuck in Montreal without a ride. He successfully requested the police to jail him for the night, and thus saved the cost of a room!

Russell earned his way through South Lancaster Academy, Kingsway College, and Atlantic Union College (AUC) during the Great Depression even though it took him three extra years. However, the experience provided manual skills and opportunities for leadership. He gained many friends, and in 1938, the AUC senior class elected him president. He graduated with majors in history and theology.

A few weeks later, on July 17, he married Carolyn Boyle Hall in Albany, New York. They met where she served ice cream at the college store and came to know each other better as volunteers in the children’s Sabbath School as well as members of a foreign mission group. Russell recognized that Carolyn brought him many blessings, including joy and a relaxed home atmosphere that graced their marriage of 64 years.

Carolyn also came from a poor family. She was born on June 6, 1917, in Olean, New York and, like Russell, was also the youngest of five. Her mother, Carrie Boyle Hall, was a devout Adventist who worked long hours away from home to care for invalids. Caroline’s father, Rowland King Hall, was a railroad conductor and often was away for work. Their home was a religiously broken one. He opposed the church, and his three sons followed his example. However, Carrie took responsibility for her two daughters, including their Christian education.

When Carolyn was only nine years of age, her mother arranged for her to board with a lady 450 miles away in South Lancaster in order to attend church school. She was still a young girl when she first felt the call to mission service, particularly when she represented an Armenian lady in a school program. Dressed in a black gown with shawl, she told of the plight of many loved ones who had been massacred by those who opposed Christianity.

As a teenager, Carolyn attended Greater New York Academy under the guidance of the principal’s wife, Miriam Gilbert Tymeson. With minimal family financial support, she earned her room, board, and tuition as a “mother’s helper” in Jewish homes. She later recalled that the work was often exhausting: “Some days I would go to school never having studied a lesson; on other days, overtired from work, I’d fall asleep in class.”² Carolyn also developed great sympathy for struggling students.

Work and Missionary Experience

The new couple joined the staff of Union Springs Academy in upstate New York, Russell as Bible teacher and Carolyn as teacher in the elementary school. But the Great Depression had not ended: Finances remained very limited. Although they enjoyed teaching and other responsibilities, they both felt drawn to mission service. Early in 1940, the General Conference extended a call for them to join the new Adventist College of Beirut in Lebanon. The decision was difficult: Both sets of parents were aging with their mothers in poor health. Moreover, Carolyn was pregnant. One evening, the two took a drive. Stopping along a country road for serious discussion and prayer, they were startled by an angry farmer determined that no immoral teenagers would “park” on his property. As very traditional Adventists, they had no wedding rings to signify their relationship, so the farmer did not believe that they were married.

Eventually, convinced that World War II signaled the imminent Second Coming of Christ, they accepted the call despite Carolyn’s pregnancy and their parents’ health. However, France’s defeat by Germany in June 1940 placed Lebanon under the control of the pro-German Vichy government. Soon afterwards, a decision was taken to move the Adventist College to Amman, Trans-Jordan, and the General Conference canceled the call to Beirut.

Weeks of uncertainty followed. Carolyn remembered that, “By our second wedding anniversary on July 17 we were broke, with only ten cents to our name; our cupboard was bare. We had no call to missions, no employment.”³ However, friends presented them with canned fruit, and a church member left a basket of fresh vegetables. Helping a farmer with haying, Russell earned five dollars—enough to purchase gas to return to Carolyn’s sister’s house. There they found a letter from the General Conference with a call to Africa and a check enclosed. He would attend the well-respected Hartford Theological Seminary’s School of Missions for a semester in preparation for service at the high school and teacher training college located in Ikizu, Tanganyika. Russell, a Canadian, was called to replace a German Adventist missionary who had been interned by the British authorities.

Due to wartime conditions in 1941, civilian transportation to Africa proved nearly impossible to obtain. Finally, the General Conference arranged passage for a group of seven Adventists on the Egyptian vessel the S.S. Zamzam.⁴ Thus, Jim, Carolyn, and their infant daughter, Janet, joined at least 137 other missionaries from 20 denominations sailing for Africa via Trinidad and Recife, Brazil. However, after leaving Recife, the ship observed blackout on the British captain’s orders despite the missionaries’ protest that a neutral vessel should not do so. In the early morning of April 17, 1941, the ship was shelled by the German surface raider Atlantis.⁵ As shells struck the Zamzam, its captain surrendered, and the passengers were ordered off the boat.

The Russells had anticipated the possibility of an attack, and each night had packed for an emergency. However, to reach their lifeboat, passengers had to descend a rope ladder down the side of the vessel. Jim carried his Bible, wrapped in the baby’s blanket, under his arm. As he made his way down, the Bible slipped out and fell into the South Atlantic. To everyone’s surprise, it did not sink. He saw it, others rescued it, and it provided great comfort to him during the years that followed. Another sign of God’s providence that morning, remembered by several missionaries, was a beautiful rainbow visible while they made their way to the raider.

Reluctant to keep the civilians aboard the Atlantis, a fighting ship, its captain had them transferred to a German supply ship, the Dresden. Short of both water and rations, the vessel provided difficult living conditions, but the German Navy was unwilling to risk delivering the Zamzam’s civilian passengers to a neutral port.

After an unpleasant 40-day voyage, the Dresden eventually reached Occupied France. Russell, a Canadian subject, became an enemy alien. Although listed as dependents on Jim’s Canadian passport, Carolyn and Janet were Americans. Through the efforts of other American missionaries, the General Conference, and the U. S. State Department, Carolyn was eventually issued a U. S. passport, and they were released. The U. S. Consul also arranged for Carolyn and Janet to meet James Russell, number 98590, at his prison camp for a tearful farewell before they returned to the United States. During the next four years, though a single mother, Carolyn completed her bachelor’s degree at AUC and became dean of women at Southern Junior College.

Russell’s Captivity and Post-War Experiences

As a POW, James Russell’s captivity as a prisoner of war lasted almost four years. His experiences impacted his character in three important ways. First, his faith remained strong despite the loneliness of nearly four years without meeting another Adventist. The closest he came was a forbidden conversation with a German officer who was ordered to Russia. He asked Russell, if he should survive the war, to contact his mother, an Adventist who lived in Hamburg. (As one might expect, he did write, and later visited). Second, he recognized the spiritual devotion of other Christians and worshiped with some of them. His Adventism therefore became open, and he encouraged friendship with those of other religious persuasions after the war as well. Third, despite harrowing and sometimes dehumanizing treatment, Russell never hated the Germans. Indeed, days after liberation, he volunteered to help a local farm family whose men had undoubtedly gone to war.

Russell kept Sabbaths as faithfully as possible, requesting, and obtaining, permission to switch his Saturday work assignments for Mondays. Other prisoners sometimes inquired about his absence, which gave him an opportunity to explain his faith. Each Friday, he tried to find a quiet spot before sunset for his devotions. In April 1945, one weekend proved particularly important. British forces fought their way towards the camp as Friday sunset approached, so Russell sought an isolated portion of the trenches for devotions. In his words: “I reached into my pocket and pulled out my New Testament…I opened to John 14: ‘Let not your heart be troubled…’ and continued until darkness prevented my reading further, but memory brought many, many other verses to mind. I bowed my head and prayed: ‘Lord, Thou hast been with us through all these years, and I pray Thou wilt protect us through the next few hours. If it be Thy will, save all of us from death that we may be able to return home. Be with my loved ones back home and may they have a good Sabbath. Amen.’”⁶

The next morning, Allied tanks drove into the camp. Russell wrote:

The thrill of seeing those troops coming to liberate us caused my mind to picture the great liberation that will one day arrive when Jesus comes…to set free His earthly ‘prisoners’ and take them to that home where there will be no more war… So ended four years of isolation, separation, uncertainty, and heartache. Words could not fully express our thanks to God that we could then start life over.⁷

Though the fortunate recipient of Canadian Red Cross food packages, whose cigarettes he traded for food, Russell was emaciated. He returned to Canada and the U. S. where he rejoined his family and began the adjustment to freedom. He commenced graduate study at the Adventist Theological Seminary and was ordained to the ministry in July 1946 at the New York camp meeting. When the couple received a call to the Middle East, there was no hesitation to accept it.

Service in the Middle East, 1946-1956

One month later, Russell took up duties as the Adventist pastor in Jerusalem and superintendent of the Palestine-Trans-Jordan mission, which technically included Cyprus and Arabia. One early crisis was the church school in Amman: its building was incomplete and there was only one teacher. Ruby Williams wrote in the Middle East Messenger: “However, in the Lord’s providence, Elder J. S. Russell arrived about two weeks before our opening day. His first days and nights were spent in gathering supplies and equipment from Palestine and laying plans for the school.”⁸ Another urgent request came from a Palestinian Adventist physician, Dr. Karmy, who had studied with a young Jewish couple and hoped to see them baptized before he left. It was the first baptism Russell ever performed, and it took place at Bethany-over-Jordan, the traditional location of Jesus’ baptism by John.

With violence flaring as Zionists desired to create a Jewish homeland and Palestinians fought against the loss of their own, Jerusalem soon became a zoned city. Church members waited at the gate to the zone where the Adventist mission and its chapel were located. As pastor, he signed them in, verified to keep close watch over them, then later signed them out.

In the months before guerrilla warfare and terrorism made public meetings an impossibility, a group of Hebrew Christians often met with the Adventists on Friday evening. They desired to keep the Sabbath and recognize Jesus as the Messiah and their Savior, so they found Adventist beliefs attractive. They often met with the Adventists on Friday evenings to greet one another with “Shabbat Shalom,” then to sing, pray, read Scripture and enjoy the braided bread and fruit. “Peace, I leave with You” was the title of Russell’s last message to them; he spoke in an upper room near the Mount of Olives.

British officers on occasion allowed Russell, a Canadian, to return to Palestine despite prohibitions on British subjects doing so.⁹ By the fall of 1947, however, he was ordered out: The violence thus forced a transfer to Lebanon, where, seven years after his original call, he became dean of men and church pastor at Middle East College (MEC) near Beirut.

Partly a consequence of his POW experiences as well as his long years at AUC, he was somewhat serious rather than jovial, and he ran the men’s dorm strictly. For example, he expected silence when checking each room after lights out, and punished men involved in a brawl, making them dig postholes. However, his dormitory students later recalled the strong spiritual bonds that he encouraged them to develop, and many later worked for the denomination.

In that era, college faculty members and their families also served local churches during the summer, with the Russells posted to Amman one summer and Bishmezzine in North Lebanon during another. While sometimes challenging, these assignments did bond missionaries and local members.

He had grown up on a farm, earned his way through academy and college, and survived as a POW. Jim Russell thus possessed practical manual skills combined with broad intellectual interests, and a commitment to Adventist beliefs. He had not trained as a specialist—he never pursued a doctorate. However, he evidently cared more to serve than to rise in position and did not relish committee meetings. Nevertheless, a certain flexibility of personality enabled him to carry out a wide variety of responsibilities. This fit the needs of the times: a small mission college with an unstable workforce in one of the world’s more tumultuous regions. “It’s always amazing to me,” he later said in an interview, “how the events of life were not as I planned, but they were in God’s plan. Commit your life to God in the morning—every morning—and ask Him to lead you through the day, and that’s what He’ll do.”¹⁰ During fifteen academic years at MEC, he taught religion, speech, and history. He also served as dean of men and director of plant service, and he pastored the college church thru several decades.

In 1951, the Russells were called to Egypt, and the family of five (Malcolm and Ardis had been born in Lebanon) made the journey. Initially he became pastor of the Heliopolis church, along with a variety of responsibilities. By 1956, he bore responsibilities for the Ministerial, Sabbath School, and Young People Missionary Volunteers departments. That summer he received added responsibility for the English church in Alexandria during a missionary’s furlough.¹¹ In contrast to office work, he seemingly most enjoyed organizing junior camps and Missionary Volunteer investitures.

He never mentioned one incident he experienced to his children until decades later. Baptisms in Cairo’s Shubra quarter, known for a higher concentration of Coptic Christians, encouraged the mission to acquire a small building to serve as a chapel. One Friday in January 1952, Russell arranged to meet an Egyptian pastor there to help with renovations. Driving to the building, he noticed the railroad overpass blocked by a crowd. Forced to detour, he arrived late at the chapel. He had to knock repeatedly before the frightened Egyptian co-worker opened the door, amazed to see him. Elements of the crowd on the road–an anti-British mob–had come to the chapel, demanding the foreign missionary. Only Russell’s delayed arrival had kept him from the hands of a mob aroused to anti-Western violence by a British attack on an Egyptian police post. Known as “Black Friday,” mobs that day and the next set fire to hotels, department stores, and other buildings, killing at least two dozen and injuring hundreds. Russell later considered this event as his life’s most frightening moment after World War II. However, at the time he decided that he had arrived safely, and there was work to be done. The two men continued with their renovations instead of fleeing to safer suburbs.

Besides fear, Egypt brought joys to the family. Glenn, the youngest, was born there, and the Russells gained from their many Egyptian friends a deeper appreciation of the hospitality and graciousness so great in Arab society. Jim and Carolyn had come to the Middle East to bring the message of Christ to its peoples, and that remained their focus. Russell was not a sightseeing missionary, and only as teenagers or later did the children visit many of the region’s prominent tourist sites.

In October 1956, Russell was leading a Week of Prayer at MEC in Lebanon when Israel, Britain, and France launched the Suez War against Egypt. He was unable to help his wife and children, but Neal Wilson, the Mission’s president, arranged the departure of missionary families with a U. S. Navy evacuation from Alexandria. Carolyn boarded the windows and locked the house. In the early morning, she began the short drive to the local staging area for an American-organized evacuation convey. An air raid began, and shrapnel landed near the car; the blast knocked a nearby cyclist off his bike. At the meeting point, the group watched as a fighter-bomber attacked fuel storage tanks at an adjacent army base. This was the war taking place right before their eyes. An Egyptian soldier approached Carolyn, pointed his bayonet at Russell’s camera that she was wearing around her neck, and demanded its surrender. Despite the cries of her children who were fearful they would lose their mother, she refused. Eventually, the soldier and missionary compromised: The soldier took the film, but Carolyn kept the camera.

Thanks to the U. S. Navy, the Adventist missionary families from Egypt arrived in Italy, and eventually stayed at Villa Aurora, the seminary in Florence. With conditions in Egypt uncertain even after a cease-fire, the denomination decided against returning most missionary families to the country. Russell again joined the MEC faculty, where he served in the familiar roles as history and religion teacher, dean of men, church pastor, and plant service director. For several years, the role of director of plant service was important: He was a man whose hands (and clothes) got dirty, an affirmation of the virtue of manual labor in a society where it was sometimes not respected. Nevertheless, the days were long—his children remember that he often returned to the office in the evening for quiet grading and class preparation. For her part, Carolyn, who had majored in education, taught intensive English. There was also a church school for the younger children—something that was lacking in Egypt.

At MEC, 1956-1968

Those years in Lebanon were among the happiest of the Russells’ lives. His interests remained the Truth, which he found in Scripture, and the people. He enjoyed their presence at religious services, as students in class, as co-workers, and on social occasions. The bonds developed must have been strong. After his passing decades later, numerous condolences his children received described James Russell as “a father of me,” no doubt as great an earthly honor as he ever would have desired.

A signed document found in his papers provides a deep perspective into Jim Russell’s personal philosophy and actions. Titled “The Spiritual Contribution of Middle East College,” its brief introduction states his belief that God had called him to serve at Middle East College, “where I am to represent Him before the youth of the Middle East Division.” It begins with two broad questions, asking “how do I measure up to the responsibilities and obligations which thereby fall upon me? What is the quality of the daily witness I render on this campus?”¹²

The 20 questions that followed indicated the specific aspects he selected to measure the quality of his witness. Several questions touch on integrity: Was he sincere, or flattering? Did he act in harmony with what he said and believed? Was he fully impartial with everyone, or did he hold prejudices? The questions about his role at the college demonstrated his specific aspirations as a missionary and teacher; they may be worth quoting in full for future readers interested in the values that motivated the man or dominated missionaries of the era. The following are questions 9-20:

9. Am I interested in being a companion to the youth, or do I find that my education, position, or authority hinder me from enjoying a kindly, brotherly understanding and association with the youth?

12. Do I contribute to help keep the school plant clean and in a good, attractive condition, or is an untidy campus a poor advertisement for my faith?

13. Does the sacredness of the task entrusted to me inspire me to be a true, faithful, conscientious, dependable worker for the Master or would even the world be dissatisfied with my day's labor?

14. Is it the uppermost desire of my heart to see the young people of Middle East College accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, or do I look upon them as merely more youth who are trying to gain an education?

15. Does the power of the Holy Spirit so fill my own soul that the pulse of my spiritual life inspires others to choose God's plan for their life or do they fail to behold any such power in my life?

16. Do I, as a teacher in this college, and therefore one whose duty and purpose it is to defend the faith and principles of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, do my full part to maintain S.D.A. standards in matters of speech, appetite, dress, Sabbath Observance, conduct, entertainment, etc., or do I give little attention to what I know is right and true, or do I ignore it when others violate these principles, or perhaps partake in these things myself?

17. Am I contributing my share to the corporate spiritual life of the college, in whatever humble way that might be, or do I leave this important responsibility to others and allow my own influence to be neutral, valueless, or even a stumbling block?

18. Am I prepared to make whatever changes or sacrifices may be necessary in my own personal life that I will enjoy a complete commitment to God and His work on this campus or am satisfied to remain as I am and finally, in the day when accounts must be rendered, share in the results which may then appear because of my uncommitted life and service?

19. Do my life and labor in Middle East College reveal very clearly the burning urgency of the Advent message with its blessed hope for a perishing world or may others be led to conclude that Adventism is just another Christian organization with a few strange, fringe attractions or notions?

Two concluding quotes further demonstrate his perspective: First, from Ellen White, “Teachers… let it be your highest ambition to practice Christianity in your lives.”¹³ Then, from Ralph Waldo Emmerson, “Obedience alone gives the right to command.”

The turmoil of the Middle East led to another evacuation of Adventist missionaries throughout the region. On June 6, 1967, during the Six-Day War, the Russells and some other missionaries sailed to Cyprus on the deck of a freighter. It was Carolyn’s 50^th birthday. Her very personal account of their experiences, sent in a letter to friends, became a front-page story of the ARH. The editors possibly chose to publish the account for these lines:

Where we are does not matter; our heart condition is the thing that counts. Our contact with Heaven must be sure. To be ready for anything, as we live prepared to die, is our only sure way. Material things mean little when lives are involved. Our own spiritual experience is growing, and we are glad for the opportunity of serving God. There will be some wonderful stories to tell in heaven, if not on this earth. Let us have courage.¹⁴

In 1967, with two children in college and a third in academy, the Russells requested approval from the Middle East Division for permanent return.¹⁵ He had earned a master’s degree from the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in 1960 but felt that a doctorate was expected for college teaching. Therefore, he sought pastoral employment. Beginning in 1968 and for the next decade, the couple served congregations in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio. After his retirement in 1978, he continued part-time pastoring.

During the academic year 1981-1982, Jim and Carolyn returned once again to Middle East College as volunteers during an apparent calm in the country’s civil war. However, in July 1981, Israel began bombing a number of PLO targets across Lebanon in response to PLO rockets fired at Northern Israel. The Russells found themselves caught between Israeli forces in the hills above and Palestinians in Beirut below. Missiles and stray shells hit campus buildings and they, along with the college community, spent nights and some days in the bomb shelter. In June 1982, another war broke out between Israel and Lebanon. This time the Russells were once again evacuated, never to return.

The Russells moved to Berrien Springs, Michigan, in 1986, and for the first time, they purchased a home. Still fit and energetic, James volunteered faithfully at the Adventist Community Services Center for more than a decade, and Carolyn assisted at the Ruth Murdoch Elementary School. The couple played active roles in the senior citizens group known as Adventist Retirees of Michiana. His deep knowledge and love of scripture was evident to the listeners of Scriptural Pursuit, the media ministry which he co-hosted with his son, Glenn, for many years. Though he had spent very little time watching television, when the program moved to that medium, he managed the transition and appeared regularly on the program despite being in his early 90s.

After Carolyn passed away from a stroke in 2003, he lived alone in relatively good health and mental vigor. Gradually, his heart and lungs failed to provide the full energy he desired, but his cheerful spirit did not fade. When asked in all seriousness about his health at Christmastime 2007, he replied, “I thank God for His blessings each day He gives me.” Just 10 days later, he died on January 8, 2008. In his passing, Jim Russell received the last unmerited blessings God bestowed upon him, at the end of a life of difficulty and bounty, of sorrow and comfort. The day he died, he made his bed, fixed lunch, then filled out a crossword puzzle he just received from his daughter, Ardis, in California. In his last moments, he recited the promises of scripture he had memorized so faithfully, and he died in the hope of Christ’s Second Advent. His legacy continues to live in the heart of his students, parishioners and co-workers.

Sources

Burns, Gary. “Service for Life: A Tribute to James Russell.” Lake Union Herald, August 2006.

Dick, E. D. “Our Missionaries on the ‘Zamzam’ and the ‘El Nil.’” ARH, June 4, 1941.

Middle East Division Committee Minutes, September 1, 1967. 67:225. General Conference Archives, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States.

Russell, Carolyn. Unpublished manuscript. Personal collection of Malcolm Russell.

Russell, Carolyn Hall. “In Time of Crisis.” ARH, July 6, 1967.

Russell, James S. “The Spiritual Contribution of Middle East College.” Undated message. Personal collection of Malcolm Russell.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association. Various years. https://www.adventistyearbook.org/.

White, Ellen. Counsels to Teachers. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1849.

Williams, Ruby. “Amman Elementary School.” Middle East Messenger, April 1, 1948.

Notes

1. Carolyn Russell, Chapter One: “Background of Carolyn Russell,” unpublished manuscript, personal collection of Malcolm Russell. Details of James Russell’s early life were based on his recollections in Chapter One: Background of Carolyn Russell. Her manuscript provides a great deal of information used in preparing this ESDA entry; Gary Burns, “Service for Life: A Tribute to James Russell,” Lake Union Herald, August 2006, 16-19. Information for this article came from an interview between Gary Burns and James Russell.↩

2. Ibid.↩

3. Carolyn Russell, 4.↩

4. E. D. Dick, “Our Missionaries on the ‘Zamzam’ and the ‘El Nil,’” ARH, June 4, 1941, 118-28, 32. The other Adventist missionaries were Mrs. Violet Hankins, Helen Hyatt, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Johnson, and Mr. and Mrs. T. J. Jenkins. Dick explains the General Conference’s choice of the Zamzam and efforts to gain the release of the group. A number of books and other materials exist about the Atlantis, the Zamzam, and their passengers.↩

5. Carolyn Russell, “Liberation,” chapter from unpublished manuscript.↩

6. Ibid.↩

7. Ruby Williams, “Amman Elementary School,” Middle East Messenger, April 1, 1948, 38.↩

8. Russell later related one anxiety-inducing return to Palestine that took place when, after meetings in Egypt, he was asked to carry back excess funds to Palestine. During the war years, denominational funds had been deposited at banks in neutral Egypt, the church’s regional center. But after the war, Egypt began to introduce currency controls, and church leaders feared restrictions on use of the cash. Having already cleared customs, Russell shook hands in farewell at Cairo airport with Neal Wilson and several church leaders while they stuffed envelopes of cash into his suit pockets. His hands apparently shook as well until he landed and cleared customs in Palestine.↩

9. Burns, 16-19.↩

10. Seventh-day Adventist Online Yearbook, Nile Union Mission, accessed December 8, 2023, https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/YB1956.pdf#search=1956.↩

11. James S. Russell, “The Spiritual Contribution of Middle East College,” undated message, personal collection of Malcolm Russell.↩

12. Ibid.↩

13. Ellen White, Counsels to Teachers (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1849), 230.↩

14. Carolyn Hall Russell, “In Time of Crisis,” ARH, July 6, 1967, 1.↩

15. Middle East Division Committee Minutes, September 1, 1967, 67:225. General Conference Archives.↩