One School. Three Generations. Exponential Impact.
The Olsen family—and Trisha’s parents, the Stienstras—have called ICSB home-away-from-home over twenty years, two countries, and three generations. We caught up with them in June, when two of those three generations visited campus.
Earlier this summer, Rich and Linda Stienstra walked the halls of ICSB again—joined this time by their sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Alyssa Olsen. The couple hadn't been back since teaching there for a single semester in 2011. Alyssa's own ties to the school ran through her parents, Bjorn and Trisha, who spent thirteen years coaching, mentoring, and teaching there; she herself hadn't set foot on campus since 2018, when she was a second grader. This summer marked the first time two generations—grandparents and granddaughter—walked the halls together.
During their campus tour, Alyssa and her grandparents stopped at a timeline of ICSB’s history that runs along the wall of a main corridor. She spotted her father’s name at once. “Seeing him recognized as part of the school’s history made me incredibly proud,” Alyssa said. “It reminded me that my family’s connection to ICSB is much bigger than I understood as a kid.”
That moment encapsulated the grateful tenor of their entire visit—and the larger story of how one extended family came to call a Christian school in Diósd, Hungary, home, twice over, across two generations of service, and now with a third generation old enough to reflect on it.
Where it began
Bjorn & Trisha Olsen
2005 — 2018 · Bjorn: Athletic Director, PE & Facilities · Trisha: English & ELL Teacher
A video, a call, and eight months later...
Bjorn
It started at a late-night dinner. Bjorn and Trisha Olsen were visiting Trisha’s parents, Rich and Linda Stienstra, when family friends Brad and Kari Mullet stopped by and played one of ICSB’s original recruiting videos—one centering, Bjorn remembers, on a single repeated theme: community.
"Brad stopped the video and pointed at me and said, ‘I think you’d be perfect for the Athletic Director position,’” Bjorn recalls. “On our way home, I looked at Trisha and said, I believe that if we don’t do this we would be going against God’s will for our lives.” That was 2004. Within eight months, their support had been raised, and the Olsens were on their way to Hungary.
Building an athletic conference
When Bjorn arrived at ICBS, the school's athletic program needed direction. Director David Welsh and High School Principal David White gave him the mandate and freedom to lead. “Well, Bjorn, you can do whatever you feel called to do with our athletic program,” White told him. “For years, we have had challenges organizing our program, so have at it.”
What followed was years of networking with international Christian schools across East-Central Europe, drafting the first handbook for what would become the Danube Valley Athletic Conference (DVAC), and, almost by default, becoming its first president. “My first and foremost requirement of our coaches was to love Jesus as their Lord and Savior,” Bjorn said. Thirteen years—and every one of them, in his words, a gift from God—alongside the wife he calls his best friend, teammate, and biggest supporter.
The title of Athletic Director far from described Bjorn's entire job, however. Over his thirteen years at ICSB, he also served as a PE teacher, a substitute teacher, facilities director, and even a Bible teacher when the school needed one. “All the roles God allowed me to serve in at ICSB blessed me and my family in so many ways,” he said. “My favorite were the roles that allowed me to mentor and disciple students.”
As a benediction, Bjorn adds, “I hope that you and your family either have or will have accepted Jesus’s gift of salvation and grace. With much love and gratitude from the Olsen family.”— Bjorn Olsen
Trisha
For Trisha, Hungary began as an overseas ministry opportunity for her and Bjorn, but quickly became much more. “Budapest and Diósd became our home,” she said. “God blessed us with amazing Hungarian landlords, Laci and Marta Kesztler. They embraced us as part of their family.” At ICSB, she taught alongside Bjorn before stepping back from the classroom to raise their growing family, a change she describes with joy. While Bjorn coached and taught at school, Trisha found her own way to invest in the same students from home.
“Being a stay-at-home mom in Hungary has been one of the greatest gifts of my life,” she said. “Being able to pour into students through coaching and discipleship, and inviting them into our home, was a gift to be treasured.”
The season that sent them home, briefly
Not every chapter was easy. In the summer of 2007, the Olsens’ oldest daughter, Lianna—then a toddler—began having seizures. The young family returned to the United States for extensive testing and treatment. ICSB’s yearbook that year was dedicated to them, a glimpse into how deeply they had already impacted the school community. They returned to Budapest as soon as they were able, and Lianna’s care has continued in the years since.
The legacy they hope to leave
Asked what legacy he hopes to leave at ICSB, Bjorn doesn’t mention trophies or tournament banners. “That others would have witnessed glimpses of strong followers of Jesus through ICSB’s teaching and athletic staff,” he said. “It was such a tremendous blessing and gift for our family to be able to be a part of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ at ICSB and in Hungary.”
Trisha’s answer, thirteen years and one continent later, ends the same way as it surely began: “We are forever grateful to the many families that we were privileged to walk life with throughout our thirteen years of serving in Hungary. Thank you to ICSB and the many amazing Hungarian people who work there. You are all loved and treasured by our family.” Viszontlátásra!”
Called for a season
Rich & Linda Stienstra
Fall 2011 · One Semester · Rich: Bible · Linda: ELL
An office, a stack of job descriptions, and a drawn-in heart
Rich
Rich’s connection to ICSB began years before he ever taught a class there. When his daughter and son-in-law joined the staff, Rich and Linda visited more than once. On one particular visit, during a high school building addition, Rich spent six weeks in a borrowed office interviewing all nineteen Hungarian staff members and writing job descriptions for each one. “That time being in the school and getting acquainted with the staff drew my heart close to them and the mission of ICSB,” he said.
The commitment they almost didn’t have to keep alone
Linda
By 2011, Linda had just retired from a long career teaching English Language Learners outside Chicago when ICSB reached out: the current ELL teacher needed to return to the U.S. to raise support, and an immediate replacement was needed. After praying for guidance, Rich and Linda said yes to an exciting new adventure.
It was supposed to be a reunion of sorts. Their daughter’s growing family had already been serving at ICSB in Hungary for years, and the Stienstras had planned to overlap with them in Budapest. The timing did not work out. Just as Rich and Linda arrived, the Olsens had to return to the United States for several months so baby Lianna could receive emergency medical care.
“Rich and I felt that God opened this door for us and we needed to honor the commitment we made with ICSB,” Linda said, “so we flew to Hungary not knowing what was ahead.” Rich remembers praying it through and sensing God had something larger in mind: “God had a greater plan for us to be independent and on our own. This turned out to be a huge blessing... It ended up being the most rewarding experience of my lifetime.”
A house in Diósd that became home-away-from-home
Rich and Linda spent their semester living in the home of Larry and Nancy Milks. “We were not ‘guests’ of Trisha and Bjorn but members of the community who had to figure things out for ourselves,” Rich said. Living overseas, even briefly, he found “challenging and exhilarating.” He joined a men’s morning Bible study and breakfast, and he and Linda found a second church home at the Danube International Church. “We made a conscious decision to become engaged in the community,” he said, “and contribute the best we could.”
A classroom neither of them planned on
Rich hadn’t expected to teach at all. The original plan was for Linda to lead ELL while he found a project to help with, as he had on past visits. That changed at his first staff meeting, when Director David Welsh asked if he would fill in for a middle-grades Old Testament class while the incoming teacher finished raising support. Rich agreed, thinking it would be temporary. The other teacher never arrived. “I had trained people all my business career, and I loved God’s Word, so it was full speed ahead,” he said. “I looked at it like developing a new business plan—determining my desired outcomes for each class, and set sail.”
Linda, meanwhile, found her ELL students unforgettable. “One thing that impressed me so much was how polite and eager the students were to learn English,” she said. “It was a true blessing from God to have this opportunity to teach ELL at ICSB for one semester.”
Not only were Linda’s students unforgettable; so were Rich’s. Among them was a young student named Benedek Kiss, who took Rich’s Old Testament course all those years ago. On the Stienstras’ campus tour, the couple ran into Benedek, now an ICSB math and science teacher. He happened to be on campus that day and was thrilled to say hello and snap a photo.
What touched their hearts
Six months was a short stint, but it left a lasting mark on Rich and Linda. Asked what made their time in Hungary and at ICSB so powerful, both point to the same thing. “It was the staff and their love for what they did for the students, and the support they showed each other,” Rich said. He also spoke of the cost: “There is a cost, both financial and personal, related to making the commitment to have your children discipled in a Christian school. But the foundations that are laid for the rest of their lives are worth the cost.”
Walking the halls again, with Alyssa
Also worth it was returning to ICSB with their granddaughter, now a young adult, and sharing memories of the school together. “I had to hold back my tears coming back with our granddaughter, Alyssa,” Linda said. “She was so excited to see her old school, and see her dad’s old office, and the gym where he coached so many athletic events.”
“I am so thankful to have been part of the community that serves its students so well,” Rich said. “As I walked the halls, I had an immense sense of gratitude to God that He allowed me, later in my life, at age 63, to be part of such a place and mission.”
“I am very grateful for the ICSB staff who took time to give us a tour with Alyssa,” Linda added. “A special thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”
The Ones Who Grew Up Here
Lianna, Alyssa & Josiah
ICSB Classes of ’25, ’28 & ’30
Bjorn and Trisha began raising all four of their children in Diósd: Lianna, Alyssa, Josiah, and Selah. Selah, the youngest, was still too young for school when the family’s ICSB years came to a close—though not too little to ride along to games and cheer on her dad. The older three attended the Lower School and have ICSB memories of their own
Lianna
ICSB Class of 2025 · left in 5th grade, age 11 · now 19
“I really liked seeing my friends, nice teachers every day. They always made me happy,” Lianna said, naming Ms. Kopataki, Ms. Meiners, Ms. Pollard, and Ms. Winget among the teachers she remembers most fondly. She loved PE, and she loved going to watch her dad work ICSB’s big basketball tournament. When her sister Alyssa asked if she wanted to be part of this story, she didn’t hesitate: “It is important for me to tell people how much I loved ICSB, and how so many students and teachers were so kind to me, and always included me in so many different ways.”
Alyssa
ICSB Class of 2028 · left in 2nd grade, age 8 · now 16
Alyssa recounts her ICSB days wistfully. “The first thing that hit me was the overwhelming sense of nostalgia,” she said. “Walking through the halls again felt like coming home to a place I hadn’t seen in years but had never really forgotten.” She still remembered her way through the hallways. She remembered Wednesday lunches in her dad’s office with her siblings. And when she found her father’s name on the school’s history timeline, that made her “incredibly proud” and reframed how big her family’s ICSB story really is.
“You don’t always realize how special a place is until you have to leave it,” she said. “It still feels like home in so many ways.” Perhaps that is because the family has kept that ICSB chapter alive.
“Still to this day, around the dinner table, old memories from ICSB come up. We laugh about old stories, remember old friends, and talk about life in Diósd—and it’s always fun, because it was such a unique chapter of our lives.”
This fall, Alyssa starts her junior year of high school, including AP classes, track and field, and a growing interest in healthcare. By her own account, she feels optimistic about the future. She credits her formative years in Hungary and at ICSB as a big part of that.
Josiah
ICSB Class of 2030 · left in Pre-First Grade · now 14
Even at such a young age, Josiah watched what the job—and the school—meant to his dad. “He was so invested in all of the sports and wanted to help all the kids be the best players they could be,” he said.
When asked if he would like to return for a visit himself one day, Josiah readily said yes, but with a special request: to suit up as a Bulldog. He was too young to turn out the first time around. Now, as a high schooler himself, he has a vision for it: “I think it would be really fun to try and suit up with the basketball team for a game too.” (Hey, Josiah, ICSB’s alumni games are in December, if you want to give it a go!).
Josiah turns serious, however, when he talks about how grateful he is for ICSB and its place in his story. He was only a little boy when they left Hungary, but he still remembers the school community and credits it with helping form who he is today. By his own description, he has a growing interest in one day becoming a pastor.
We look forward to seeing where God takes Josiah—and, indeed, the rest of the Olsen-Stienstra family—as they step out in faith, ready for their next adventure. 🐾