“Last month has been very, very hard here…” says Pnina Lizorkin ’26, an Online Degree Program student from Israel. “Literally, there were sirens every day. You never know when a siren will sound and a missile rocket will hit. We’re not so close to the border, and they usually hit the towns near the border. But still…”

Pnina has faced all the challenges of completing her degree as a non-traditional student. She balances school with working two jobs and spending time with family. But as an international student from Israel getting her Bachelor of Professional Studies in Human Resources with a combined minor in management and psychology, Pnina’s last semester has been fraught with the extra difficulty of living in an area of active military conflict.

Pnina was born in Israel and moved to the United States with her family at the age of 12. Her parents were traditionally Jewish, but not particularly religious. However, Pnina recounts that in 1988 as they were about to move to the States, her mother began to search for God. She met some Christian evangelicals from the mission organization Den Norske Israelmisjon — the Norwegian Church Ministry to Israel. They shared Christ with her, and Pnina’s mother believed the Gospel just as the family packed up and moved across the world to the Philadelphia area.

“So from there, she was the one who told me about Jesus for the first time,” says Pnina. “I didn’t really understand much at that time. But we moved in July of 1988 and found a church, and I learned more about the Bible.”

Her mother hid her faith from her father for about a year, but when she did share that she was a believer, he became emotionally abusive and threatening. To escape the escalation of threat, Pnina’s mom took the family to a Christian camp.

It was at that camp at the age of 13 that Pnina heard the call to follow Jesus. She accepted it, growing in faith and discipleship as the family joined a local congregation. And as she grew older, she began to set her sights on education and service in God’s kingdom.

“It was always my dream to go to college and get a bachelor’s degree.”

Pnina made attempts to go to college after high school, but the demands of marriage and raising her young children at that time got in the way of finishing a bachelor’s degree.

Nearly 18 years ago she moved with her children and former husband back to Israel. She now lives in Haifa, Israel and has three children, Lana (23), Oren (21), and Moshe (18).

Pnina works as a special projects coordinator and secretary for the same mission organization that shared Christ with her mother. She helps to manage a few properties that the organization owns and manages volunteers who come on missions to Israel, helping them with visas and travel logistics. She also organizes annual national conferences for Shabbat School teachers in Israel, and works as a teacher and bookkeeper for the English language school Speak Up, which has about 500 Israeli students eager to learn English.

The impetus to try again for an undergraduate degree came during a visit back home in the States. “One summer, in 2022, I came back from visiting, and all my nieces were going to college and really enjoying it. And I said, ‘Wow, that’s something that I always wanted to do’, you know?”

By providence she ended up having a timely conversation with her boss when she returned from her trip.

“My boss, for some reason, asked me, ‘So what do you want to do with your life?’ And I said, ‘I really want to go to college.’ So she said, ‘Well, go ahead and try it!’”

Pnina began to write to a few colleges, and Geneva College was the only one who responded to her inquiries promptly. Admission staff for Geneva’s Online Degree Programs answered all of her questions and assisted with the process of applying and registering for classes. “They were always available and very responsive,” she remembers. “I really had a good feeling about it.”

The last four years of Pnina’s life have been very busy. She works until around 6 p.m., cooks dinner and finishes up any errands she has to do, and then settles in for an evening of schoolwork. Seeking to get the most from her degree, she puts notable effort into each assignment and thoroughly reads all the assigned texts: “I don’t want to forget anything, so I have documents full of notes on every chapter.”

She has sacrificed to make it through the program, often declined going out with friends or meeting up with family members because assignments were due. “The last four years were challenging,” she says, “but I knew that was temporary, so I could deal with it.”

Pnina shares that what she has been learning in her degree directly applies to the work she is currently doing. She looks forward to expanding those roles and taking on more challenges with the knowledge and creativity she has gained through the degree.

For every assignment, she had to deeply consider how faith integrated with the theory she was studying. That type of study felt new to her, and she enjoyed how much critical thinking was involved through the process of applying the Bible and her faith to the theoretical and practical elements of her field, as well as in the humanities courses.

Taking online classes internationally comes with its own challenges. However, the time difference sometimes gave her an advantage, especially if assignments were due at midnight in Pennsylvania. “I’m already seven hours ahead of you, so I could get up early and finish my assignments, which would help with my sleep schedule,” she says.

Pnina Lizorkin celebrated her graduation with classmate and friend, Leah Cochran, and ODP Director Hannah George

Even from across the world, Pnina connected with fellow student Leah Cochran, who started the program at the same time. They keep up over email and were able to celebrate their achievement together, in person, for their commencement cermony on May 9, 2026 at Geneva College.

Finishing the degree in the last few months has been a time of particular stress. The active conflict between Iran, Lebanon, and Israel has become an ever-present reality in Pnina’s life. She has worked with her professors to manage the possibility of leaving assignments unfinished to get to a bomb shelter.

“I would write my professors and say, ‘If I have to take a quiz and there’s a siren, can I get an extension or redo it or something?’ It is stressful and there were a lot of times when I was just glued to the news instead of doing homework.”

Despite this difficulty, Pnina is now a Geneva College alumna and is applying what she learned as she serves the Lord in her life and work. “I feel very tired but satisfied. But I’m fulfilling my dream of getting the degree that I’ve always wanted.”