My Providential Path to WSC

by AARON SASANE

My name is Aaron Sasane, and I’m a first-year MDiv student here at Westminster Seminary California. My wife (Abi), son (Jonny), and I made the move to Southern California in the Fall of 2021 from Pune, India. We are so glad to be here and are reminded daily of the blessing it is for me to be able to study at WSC. We are grateful to God for leading us here. It’s been almost eight months since we arrived here. I am enjoying my classes and interacting with the professors and students. What a privilege to study under men who are faithful to God’s Word and love the Church. I have found the professors to be very encouraging and approachable. We are thankful to the people that God has used along the way to encourage and support us in this journey so far. We would like to share a little bit of our story so that you, too, can marvel with us at the goodness of our God.

Our journey to seminary was a very long one, but it is filled with many wonderful stories of God’s faithfulness and amazing providence through His people. It all began in January 2018 when my brother, Vineet Sasane, visited Escondido for the WSC Annual Conference. He loved the seminary campus, teaching, and pastoral hearts of the professors and excitedly told me about the seminary on his return home. He handed me the 2017-18 student prospectus and asked me to prayerfully consider studying here. So here I was, with the WSC prospectus in hand but with many questions running through my mind. I didn’t know much about the seminary but decided to prayerfully consider it.

During this time, I was working in an insurance company, but was involved in various ministries in the church and had a desire to be further equipped for future ministry. I had taken part in several formal and informal ministry training programs since 2013, but a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree had always remained a distant dream. I was considering various seminaries at this point, including some in India or other online options; but nothing seemed like a good fit. Around this time, I had begun discovering Reformed theology and would listen to sermons and podcasts during my spare time. My heart and mind began grasping the wonderful truths of Reformed theology, and WSC quickly became my top choice to go to seminary.

HOMETOWN: Pune, India PROGRAM: M.Div.

I finally applied to WSC and got accepted in late 2018, but little did I know that it would take us almost two and a half years to get here.

Our plans to come in Fall 2019 had to be pushed back for a year after we found out we were expecting our first baby, Jonathan (Jonny). Then the pandemic hit in March 2020, and the possibility of going to seminary in the Fall of 2020 was looking less and less likely. Borders were closed, flights were canceled, and we could not get a visa. I had to defer admission to Fall 2021 as we were in the process of raising funds, too. With so much uncertainty, seminary seemed like an impossible dream. We even felt like giving up at times. But the Lord’s ways are higher than our ways. All through this time, we kept trusting the Lord to open doors for us to come here. Even though it took a very long time and through several unexpected means, it was amazing to see how God began to make our path straight to go to seminary. After months of uncertainty, there was a glimmer of hope. The US consulates were re-opened and began to schedule appointments for student visa interviews, and international travel was resuming. So, by April 2021 we were on track to make it for Summer Greek. All we needed was a student visa and flight tickets.

Just when we thought things were moving, the second wave of Covid hit in May 2021. Travel from India to the USA was suspended temporarily. This was a huge blow for us. With a travel ban, it would be impossible to make it to seminary in July. But we kept trusting the Lord, and a few days later we got to know that students with a valid student visa and an August 2021 start date were allowed to travel to the USA. We figured we could make it in time for the Fall semester. This was a wonderful answer to prayer! In the next few weeks and months, there were endless times of waiting and much uncertainty with our visa appointment, too. In God’s good providence, we got an appointment for a visa interview about 10 days before the start date of the Fall semester. After our visas were approved, we received our passports one day before we were scheduled to fly out from Mumbai, India.

We felt like we were all set. We said our goodbyes to friends and family and just when we were ready to drive to the airport, we learned that our flight from Mumbai to Newark was canceled due to bad weather. We were initially booked to fly from Mumbai to Newark to LAX, but since our flight from Mumbai to Newark was canceled, we were now given a new flight schedule. The new travel itinerary had four flights from Mumbai to New Delhi to London to San Francisco to San Diego. It seemed very daunting to take four flights with our two-year-old boy who had never been on an airplane before. But we were sure this is what the Lord had planned for us. We had seen his faithfulness to lead us so far and we were confident that he would take us through. After 72 hours of travel and two canceled flights, we finally made it to Escondido. The Lord was faithful!

From the time we heard about the seminary in 2018 to the moment we arrived on campus, we have seen the Lord’s goodness extended to us through many people in many ways. We are so thankful to the admissions team at WSC. Mark MacVey, Barbara Clark, Marcus McArthur, Cassady Gilmour, and many others worked tirelessly and helped us with the admission process over the months. The wider WSC community, including graduates and their churches, have also been a blessing to us in different ways. We also had the extra blessing of connecting with some current students before we got here. Abi was able to join the Westminster Women’s Fellowship Facebook group while we were back in India, and many of the ladies came around us to make our transition a smooth one. Without their help, we would have arrived on campus a day before the Fall semester began and would have had to quarantine for a week or more without anything in the apartment. We are so grateful for all the help and encouragement that we have received along the way. The Westminster Village has been an enormous blessing to us. We have been enjoying good fellowship with other families who are in the same season of life as we are. Our boy loves the friends he has made and gets to play with them every day at the playground. We are so thankful to the many donors who made it possible for students to experience this unique community life.

We look forward to returning to India once I graduate and serving the church there in whatever way the Lord has planned for us. Our hearts are for the local church, and I also want to be able to pass on the education I receive to future pastors and teachers in India. The resources for theological training in India are very limited. Reformed seminaries and churches are very few and far between. The need for new churches and for strengthening established churches is enormous in India. We are eager to see how the Lord will use us back home. Please pray that we would be prepared well to serve God’s people in the land of India for the glory of God.

An all-day, campus-wide event designed to give prospective students a glimpse into life at WSC. This is an opportunity to experience seminary for yourself!

OCTOBER 28, 2022 JANUARY 13, 2023 MARCH 10, 2023

WSC will reimburse you up to $400 for your travel expenses. Contact our admissions team today to learn more. ADMISSIONS@WSCAL.EDU WSCAL.EDU/VISIT