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Any senior applying to medical schools could use a prayer or two. Then there’s Adam Anderson. The international rescue and relief (IRR) major will be applying to highly competitive programs while volunteering in a country currently at war. He’s going to need all the prayers he can get.

He will be one of two students from Union serving in Chernivtsi, Ukraine next school year. Along with Benjamin Franks (a junior IRR major from California), Anderson will teach English at a language school operated by the Bukovinskaya Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Located just 20 miles from the Romanian border, Chernivtsi is on the opposite side of the country from the front lines … but it is still occasionally the target of Russian missiles. “If the war comes too close, we’ll get over the border,” Anderson said matter-of-factly.

He is no stranger to disaster zones, albeit natural in origin rather than human. “I’ve helped lead three disaster responses: Hurricane Ida in Louisiana, Hurricane Ian in Florida and the tornado in Arkansas this spring,” Anderson said. “In college, you’re just going, going, going trying to get good grades. I know the school work will pay off eventually, but it’s easy to lose sight of what we’re learning for. Union’s Disaster Response Team gives us an opportunity to put our training to use and really help people.”

Anderson credits the semester IRR majors spend studying in Malawi with broadening his horizons and defining his calling. “It was definitely an eye-opening experience,” Anderson said. “I had been interested in health care before Malawi, but after seeing the problems they face, it made me much more interested in global health. I learned a lot, and it was a very humbling experience.” 

“The IRR program really changes you,” he continued. “I didn’t want to be a physician before. My college journey has been a constant path of growth.” He started as a nursing major at another university before transferring to Union for the IRR program with the goal of becoming a paramedic. “I realized I wanted to know the why behind how the body works, so I set my sights on graduate school,” Anderson explained. After researching physical therapy and considering becoming a physician assistant, he ultimately decided medical school was the right fit for the calling he felt.

He plans to take the MCAT in August just before leaving for Ukraine, but he will have to finish the application process during his gap year abroad. “I want to specialize in global health,” he said. “Going to Dzelaka refugee camp in Malawi, I was reminded of the verse in Matthew 9 when Jesus says it’s not the healthy who need healing. I want to spend my time helping in places that really need physicians.”

Union’s IRR Program gives pre-med students like Anderson opportunities to experience patient care long before grad school by training them to become emergency medical technicians during their first year. “The professors in IRR really up the ante in the EMT course, and for good reason,” Anderson explained. “In most classes, if I miss something, I just get a bad grade. As an EMT, if I missed a concept, someone could die. The teachers put pressure on us in that class to make sure we can provide the quality of care people deserve.”

“Ask any of the freshmen taking that class now, and they’ll tell you they’re miserable,” he laughed. “But it’s definitely worth it. EMT training really opened doors for me, and I was able to work as an EMT for a summer back home in Alabama.”

Anderson has two pieces of advice for incoming students. The first is simple and practical: sign up for intramural sports. “I love sports,” he said. “To me, that’s how you meet new people. Every time I play intramurals, I make new friends, and it doesn’t matter which team they’re on. It’s a great reason to get out of your room.” 

The second is a lifelong process: “Get out of your comfort zone,” he said. “That’s where I found my calling, what I’m really passionate about. The EMT class was out of my comfort zone when I first came, but because of that, I realized I enjoy patient care and physiology. I went to Malawi, which was really hard — both the classes and getting homesick. But that’s where I found the direction I want to go in life. The hardest times are when I’ve grown the most and learned about myself.”

Ukraine is certainly no one’s idea of a comfort zone right now, even for the Ukrainians. But as he’s done time and again, Anderson is following his heart to a place in desperate need of mission-minded volunteers. And back in Nebraska, he’ll have a whole campus praying for him.