Kearstin Bailey has been working with the RCH as a Global Mission Intern (GMI) for the last year and a half. She was sent by Global Ministries (GM), a joint endeavor of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and Christian Church Disciples of Christ (DOC) to do meaningful international mission work, to serve in Budapest, Hungary for a two year term. As her time with the RCH winds down, a group from her UCC community in the United States, David’s UCC in Canal Winchester, Ohio, came to visit her and learn more about her service in Hungary.

The RCH has had a longstanding partnership with GM for many years. Balázs Ódor, RCH Ecumenical Officer, is the European representative to the Common Global Ministries Board and meets regularly with GM staff about their work with partner churches around the world. Kearstin is the second GMI that the RCH has hosted in Budapest, beginning with Amy Lester in 2012.

During their trip, Rev. Dave Long-Higgins, Senior Pastor at David’s UCC, wrote daily theological blog posts reflecting on Kearstin Bailey’s work and things that the group discovered during their mission trip. The UCC group met with a plethora of people during their time in Hungary, including staff at the RCH Ecumenical Office, people from Kalunba (the RCH’s implementing partner for refuge integration), as well as the GMI’s pastors at the Scottish Mission. Below you will find an excerpt from Rev. Long-Higgins’ blog, and the full post can be found here. Meaningful cultural exchanges such as this are vital for the church’s work in the wider world, and the RCH was happy to be engage with the group from the GMI’s spiritual community in the United States.

“Maybe you have noticed the power of one.  This is not the power of rugged individualism so prized by American culture so much of the time.  It is not the worship of the island whereby there is no contact with anyone else except oneself.  The power of one, is much more like the salt and light of which Jesus speaks.  It is the discovery that inside each life there is a power to effect a kind of lasting difference in the life of the human family or the wider creation.  Today we were witnesses to the power of one who by living inside the One strengthens everyone around them.” – Rev. Dave Long-Higgins

Article by Kearstin Bailey