The first thing she thought of was the air.
Fireworks smoke still hung heavy in the July sky when Evelina Rylska arrived in Lincoln. Hazy remnants of the holiday come and gone.
Then she thought of clothes. Her luggage was still stuck in Rome.
Rylska had always planned to come to America under more normal circumstances. Get a visa, find a host family, live the life of any foreign exchange student.
Then, in February 2022, the war came.
Planes soared over her neighborhood on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, leaving the city pockmarked with craters. Rockets ripped through apartment buildings. The windows in her own home, shattered.
Rylska and her mother spent days in a bomb shelter.
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“We didn’t leave right away because we all thought it would be for a couple of days and then it would go away,†she said.
But it didn’t.
In early March, they took a train to the border of Poland, where they caught a bus to Warsaw. They stayed in a hotel for a few days, then found shelter through a woman they met at a church.
Then it was off to Switzerland, where a guardian angel lived.
He had connections in Nebraska, at a school named Lincoln Lutheran. He arranged for Rylska to go there, stay with a host family and live the life of an exchange student.
The plan she envisioned all along.
‘Help Evelina’
John Kolar made two promises.
The first came in an Amigos restaurant, where a group of Lincoln Lutheran parents asked him to start up a girls soccer program — and for him to be the first coach.
Kolar, whose son and daughter eventually graduated from the school, had started coaching soccer when his son was 7. He had coached his daughter, too, and agreed to lead the new program.
It was 2003, and Kolar worked at Novartis, a pharmaceutical company with a facility just outside of town.
The second promise came years later, long after he had left his coaching position and his native Lincoln to move to Switzerland to work at the company's headquarters.
In 2014, revolution broke out a few countries to the east, in Ukraine. Protesters clashed with state forces over then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to distance the country from the European Union and strengthen ties with Russia, a precursor to the conflict that would reach a head in 2022.
Kolar went to Ukraine that summer to follow up on a shipment for a patient who needed a life-saving product Novartis manufactured. The patient had sent a letter to Kolar, who works in operations, asking for help.
He needed an interpreter to help him and found one. Her name was Helen Rylska — Evelina’s mom.
They continued to stay in touch after the 2014 revolution. Kolar learned about the family’s history. Helen Rylska’s own grandfather had been taken away during the Cold War by Soviet spies for speaking against the government.
In December 2020, Kolar met Helen’s father, who was left partly paralyzed by a stroke, and asked him about the story — and posed a question.Â
“I asked him, ‘Look, if there’s one thing you could have, what it would be?’ I thought he would say to walk again, to see his dad,†Kolar said. “He asked me to help Evelina.
“So we shook hands that day and I promised him, I would do my best.â€
‘A clever God’
Evelina had a test the next day that she didn’t want to take. She hoped it would be canceled, she told a friend.
It was Feb. 23, 2022. A Wednesday, she remembers.
“I was, like, “I’ll see you tomorrow,’†she recalled telling her friend.
The test never happened. Instead, on Feb. 24, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. Jet planes soared over the apartments in Evelina’s neighborhood on the outskirts of Kyiv.
The explosions of bombs shattered windows, ripped apart buildings. Grocery store shelves were mostly empty, save for some bread.
Evelina and Helen took refuge in the bomb shelter. Her mother had a choice to make, Evelina said. Stay or leave, even if meant leaving her own parents behind.
They went to the packed subway station, where trains were taking women and children out of the country.
“When we were leaving Ukraine, we didn’t know where we were going,†she said. “We just got on.â€
They ended up at the Polish border, where buses took refugees to cities across the country.
Evelina and her mother decided to go to Warsaw, where they didn’t have any connections but figured they might find some help in the Polish capital.
They arrived at 2 a.m. and stayed in a hotel for a couple of days. Then, at a church, they met a woman who agreed to take them in. She had young children and Evelina agreed to help take care of them.
Evelina didn’t think they would be there long.
“I remember sending (my friends) a video … ‘Well, I’m going to Poland for two weeks and then in two weeks I will come back because (the war) will not last that long,’†she said. “It just continued.â€
Ultimately, the plan was to get to Kolar in Switzerland, where Evelina could stay a couple of months, attend an international school in Basel, then come to Lincoln.
Kolar knew of Evelina’s plans to be an exchange student before the war. She was a bright, inquisitive student looking to perfect her English.
“She’s pretty intelligent,†he said. “She knows four to five languages.â€
Kolar worked with Lincoln Lutheran, which already had an exchange program with a school in Norway. Evelina would arrive in the summer, just days after the Fourth of July.
How the pieces fell together was no accident, Kolar believes. There was a design: A host family available to take her, a school welcoming her with open arms.
“I just sat there and thought, ‘Oh, my word. God’s a clever God.’â€
‘She picked it up’
Evelina thought she couldn’t breathe.
The air in Lincoln was choked with smoke — a stark contrast to the alpine air of Switzerland. The tap water tasted off, too. Not as clean and crisp.
Her suitcase got stuck in Italy for 40 days, a kind of biblical number, Evelina thought. Her host family took her to a mall to get some clothes.
In the fall of 2022, she started her senior year at Lincoln Lutheran, where she's thrived as a student despite having to leave her country and family behind.
Her mother couldn’t secure a visa and had to remain in Switzerland. Evelina’s grandfather — the man to whom Kolar made his original promise — had to stay in Ukraine, where he died last summer.Â
Despite it all, Evelina has succeeded at school, said Nathan Bassett, a Lincoln Lutheran history teacher who helps oversee the exchange student program.
As an exchange student, "you have to make an attempt to pick things up," he said. "And she picked it up."
This spring, Evelina joined the soccer team. She never played in Ukraine (she was a swimmer), but she knew Kolar had been the coach there. She thought it would make him happy.
Her teammates have been welcoming.
“I thought it would not be easy to join,†she said. “But I don’t feel any pressure.â€
The transition hasn’t always been easy.
Making friends can be tough when you don’t have a driver's license. At a Husker football game, Evelina was startled when jets soared over Memorial Stadium.
“The last time I saw planes they were flying over my country and dropping bombs,†she said.
Back home, the war continues. The one-year anniversary has come and gone. Bassett once asked her why she always appeared so happy.
Evelina’s answer was simple.
“I don't have enough tears to cry anymore.â€
A promise kept
While she may someday return to her native country, Evelina, now 17 years old, has her sights on college.
She’s thinking about attending Southeast Community College, then perhaps transferring to a four-year university. She's interested in studying journalism or accounting.
There are plans to bring other Ukrainian refugees to Lincoln Lutheran, said Kolar, who has helped set up a fund with the school. Evelina was, in a sense, the first in a pilot program.
“I really can’t think of a better place that Evelina could have landed than Lincoln Lutheran," he said. "It takes a whole network: the school, the administrators, the teachers, the host family. And everyone's doing this to provide these opportunities to these kids so they can have a chance to have a better life."
When Evelina graduates this spring, Kolar plans to be there, even if her mother cannot.
That promise he made to her grandfather will come to mind, he knows. To help Evelina.
“When I see (her) walk across the stage, I will be thinking about that," he said. "About shaking his hand and the deal that we made."
A deal that he kept.