Rev. Robert Malcolm

Rev. Robert “Bob” Malcolm

Robert (“Bob”) was born in 1928, the first child of second-generation Swedish-Americans. The family was active at Oliver Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis.

When Bob was nine, they moved from Minneapolis to the family land in Inver Grove Heights that Bob’s grandfather had bought in 1872. Bob attended South St. Paul High School and the University of Minnesota, graduating with a degree in Animal Husbandry. While in college, he spent four months in Guatemala doing missionary service.

In 1954, he married Kari Torjesen, daughter of Norwegian missionaries to China. After graduating from Fuller Theological Seminary in California, he pastored churches in Hinckley, Minnesota and Orangeburg, New York. While in New York, he studied for a year at Union Theological Seminary.

Sharing a passion for God’s kingdom, Bob and Kari served as Presbyterian missionaries under the United Church of Christ in the Philippines from 1959-74. They arrived with daughter Kirsten; daughter Lois was born in the Philippines. While there, Bob first worked with students and then trained lay leaders in rural and urban congregations.

Returning to Minnesota, Bob designed and built a house on five acres of the family land. From 1974-79, he worked for the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, training lay people in evangelism. He then served at Hope Presbyterian Church in Richfield from 1980-90 as a mission and outreach pastor. In those years, he completed a Doctor of Ministry degree from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

In retirement, Bob nurtured deep ties with a Lao fellowship and a Chinese church. He traveled internationally with Kari and enjoyed learning languages, carving wood, working outside, praying extensively for many around the world, and being with his granddaughters. Later, he devotedly cared for Kari, who suffered from Alzheimer’s for over fifteen years. He cherished the arrival of great-grandchildren beginning in 2014. In the last months of his life he was lovingly cared for at St. Anthony Park Home by staff from all over God’s earth, many of whom had looked after Kari. The people he influenced in his lifetime will remember him for his genuine interest in them, his capacity to help them discover God’s call, and his profound wonder and curiosity about the world.

Preceded in death by his wife Kari and sister, Elaine. Survived by his sister Kathy, daughters Kirsten (Paul) and Lois (David), grandchildren Elisa (Ricardo) and Sara (Jim), great-grandchildren, Jacob, Milena, Anastasia, recent step-grandchildren Sarah and Molly, and many other dear extended family members.