One for the road Heidi Olson will be taking a mission trip to Bucharest, Romania. For three months she will give violin and drama lessons to the children at Casa Shalom orphanage. Pictured is Olson at Camp Tecumseh YMCAplaying a reel for a group of campers who are getting ready to give a performance. Comet photo by Dee Dellenbach Heidi Olson has never been to Bucharest, Romania, and she's never taught violin lessons in an orphanage, but she's going to do both this month when she leaves for Eastern Europe.

The Casa Shalom - or 'house of peace' - is home to about 30 orphans who go to public school during the day. Olson said she will be teaching the kids music and drama. On the weekends, she will take them on day trips to the countryside, where they will perform musicals and evangelical dramas.

Olson said when word came to her about the Romania mission, she called the director of the orphanage, Rebecca DanWalsh, who is an American. They spoke many times over the course of several weeks. Olson said she prayed and finally felt at peace that it was in God's plan for her to go.

Bucharest was once a great metropolis before communism took it over. Olson said in the 1990s, a dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, assumed power, and mandated that couples have at least four children. At the same time, he exported the country's food supply, creating thousands of orphans and debilitating poverty. She said Casa Shalom is just one of many orphanages in the city of 2.1 million people.

Today, Romania is working toward becoming a democracy, and Bucharest is - for the most part - a modern city. It boasts museums and tourist attractions such as sightseeing tours, fine dining, hotels, daily airline flights, public transportation, and limousine services.

But Olson said that in the countryside, there is still a great deal of "horse and cart poverty."

She said since she was a child she has yearned to be a missionary - to travel to a faraway place and teach people about Jesus. She grew up in Minnesota and received her bachelor's degree in elementary education, with a minor in music.

Right after graduation, she went to work for Camp Tecumseh YMCA, where she ultimately worked as the outdoor education director. She spent her days managing a staff of 12 and coordinating the 150 schools that visited the camp to hear lessons in Indiana history, the environment and character development.

Olson said she feels the Lord has been preparing her during the past decade to go to the mission field. One special thing she has done is to create the Circle of Friends.

It started several years ago. Olson met a little girl who liked to throw her Hula-Hoops up in the air. They invariably landed in the trees, so Olson gave her a hoop as a gift. Olson said she was very much taken with the girl and her sister and invited them to church. Soon they were bringing cousins and friends. The group kept growing and began calling themselves the Circle of Friends.

Now Olson dreams of expanding that circle to other countries. She said she has given Casa Shalom a threemonth commitment, and will decide after that whether she will stay or move on to another position.

"I don't have a lot of expectations about the orphanage or about living in Romania," she said. "What I'm really excited about is going to the next step (in God's service)."

"The Lord has prepared a job for me, and I'm prepared to do it. All the things I've been doing are pieces of a puzzle, preparing me for the next thing," she reflected.

Mission to Romania

Heidi Olson has sold most of her personal belongings to fund her work in Romania. The Upper Room Christian Fellowship church will support her mission, as will other people and churches. Those who would like to help may send donations to Community of Hope Lutheran Church, 14401 Biscayne Ave. W., Rosemount, MN 55068.

For more about the orphanage, visit www.misslink.org/casa/.