Taylor Studor will not be going to Ukraine for her SOS. She will be going to Greece instead.
For the past two months, the crisis in Ukraine has made news headlines every day. Although to most the events in a far-off place such as Ukraine seem to have little to do with life here at Northwestern, one local student has been particularly impacted.
Summer of Service team member Taylor Studer planned on spending her summer serving with International Teams in Ukraine. International Teams is an organization with missionaries in more than 60 countries that serves specific oppressed ethnic groups, races and classes.
Studer, a social work major, said she was excited to work with the oppressed and marginalized gypsies in Ukraine. She was going to teach English lessons, build relationships with women and children and help at an abandoned baby unit in a pediatric hospital.
At the beginning of January, a travel alert was issued by the U.S. State Department for anyone traveling to Ukraine. Studer said she initially did not think much of the alert because many countries have a travel-alert status but are still relatively safe to travel to. A week later, Ukraine’s status turned into a travel warning. The conflict in Ukraine had worsened.
According to the Wall Street Journal, antigovernment demonstrations began in Ukraine in November 2013 after the now-former President Yanukovych turned down a European Union trade and political deal. Instead, President Yanukovych signed a contract with Russia for a $15 billion bailout.
A country of 46 million, Ukraine straddles Western and Eastern Europe and has become an economic and politcal battleground for the European Union and Russia. President Yanukovych’s pro-Russia actions incited hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who are pro-Western. As the demonstrations continued, they turned into a larger protest against general government corruption.
According to the BBC, on January 22, the protests turned violent when two protestors were killed in a clash with police in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. When Patrick Hummel, NW Summer of Service leader and head of Campus Ministries, heard the Ukrainian protests had become violent, he knew NW’s Risk Assessment Committee would not approve Studer’s mission trip to Ukraine.
The Risk Assessment Committee is made up of seven members of faculty and staff. The committee must approve every domestic or international missions trip sponsored by NW. It examines trip aspects such as transportation, housing and food, health risks, crime levels and the State Department’s Safety and Security rating of the location.
“Every year, we have trips that we are on the fence about,” Hummel said.
But if there is ever a question of safety, like in the case of Ukraine, the committee tends to turn down the trip. Hummel told Studer she needed to begin pursuing a different missions destination.
Studer talked to leaders at International Teams who told her there was a position for her in Greece that would involve working with Palestinian refugees.
“I woke up one morning and was going to Ukraine, and that night I was going to Greece,” Studer said.
Initially, Studer was fine with the change in her
summer plans, but in the following weeks, she noticed that it was difficult to transition her passion and excitement for her time in Ukraine to her time in Greece. It was difficult for her to understand how she could be so attached to a place she had nevervisited.
“I was really hesitant to get to know things about Greece,” Studer said. “It was difficult for me to watch the news because it made me so sad that I wasn’t going to Ukraine.”
Through this sudden change of plans, Studer said she believes God is teaching her that she can plan all she wants, but he is still going to have his way. She has also learned that God is not limited by or to a place. She said there are people everywhere who need the love of God.
“He would have used me in Ukraine, but he can also use me in Greece,” Studer said.
Studer and two other NW students will be serving in Greece from May 25-July 19.
