Sárospataki Füzetek 21. (2017)
2017 / 2. szám - TIMELINE-ZEITLINIE - Rácsok Gabriella: Laudation of Robert Edson Bailev
Laudation of Robert Edson Bailey ® between 1999 and 2002 at Rockford Presbyterian Church, Minnesota. • In August 2002, they moved to Jefferson City, Missouri, from where he further supplied the pulpits of several churches: ® In 2003 and 2004, he served as interim Pastor at Big Creek Presbyterian Church; ® between 2006 and 2010, he was interim Pastor at Palmyra Presbyterian Church; ® from April 2010 to June 2016, he served as Temporary Supply (temporary for six years!) at Bethel-Salem Presbyterian Church. Currently, he is serving on Missouri Union Presbytery General Council, Trustees, the Administrative Commission and the Hungarian Mission Team. He began visiting Hungary in 1995 as head of a group of three minister members of the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, Minnesota, to explore the possibility of creating a relationship with the Reformed Church of Hungary. As a result, the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, Minnesota joined with the Transdanubian Reformed Church District to form a partnership. He started organizing partnerships between churches in the Presbytery and congregations in the Transdanubian Reformed Church District. When Rev. Bailey and his wife moved to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2002, they got involved in the relationship between the Missouri Union Presbytery and the Cistibiscan Reformed Church District, which started in the 1980s. Between 2010 and 2016, due to Rev. Bailey’s initiative and careful organizing activity, the relationship between the Missouri Union Presbytery and the Cistibiscan Reformed Church District was complemented by a church-to-church partnership program. During that period, I had the privilege of working with him for a few years as a program coordinator. Last year I received a letter of farewell from him, which I did not respond to. But I had good reasons for doing so; namely, I wanted him to receive the official notification about our senate decision, approved by the Cistibiscan Church District. The senate decided to confer the title of honorary professorship on Reverend Bailey. That is why he is here with us, enabling us to express our gratitude and appreciation to him in our own special way. We are sorry that his dear wife, Annel was unable to accompany him due to her state of health, but we think of her with love and keep her in our prayers. As a summary, I would like to recall a picture from the past of the Academy, more closely from the village-seminar movement of the 1930s, when the Academy made significant efforts to understand and recognize what the villages and village life were like, where most of our churches lived and worked. This took place in a time when the Academy was also trying to stay on its feet among the storms of history and to think responsibly about the future of the church. If I am rightly informed, an idea was born in that period which also became the motto for seminary training: send the best to the hardest places. Robert Edson Bailey’s life and ministry fit in well with this picture.” 2017-2 Sárospataki Füzetek 21 193
