The colorful historic port city of Valparaiso, Chile.Portrait of Robert Keith Bates. IMB Photo
Robert Keith Bates, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Chile, died Aug. 31, 2024, in Gainesville, Georgia. He was 82.
Robert was born July 16, 1942, in Asheville, North Carolina, to the late Ralph Morris Bates and Sarah Robertson Bates. He graduated from Enka High School in Candler, and received the Bachelor of Arts from Mars Hill College (now Mars Hill University), and the Master of Divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, and the Doctor of Ministry from Luther Rice College & Seminary, Jacksonville, Florida (now in Lithonia, Georgia).
Robert came to faith in Christ and was baptized in February 1953. Later, during a chapel service in college, he heard a missionary speak about his work. Robert, while seeking missionary appointment wrote, “The Holy Spirit took his words and used them to move me in a strange way. Later that day, I talked with that missionary and shared with him my feelings. He pledged his prayer support.” Robert’s restlessness over his future grew. He talked with his mother and his pastor and began to feel God was calling him into ministry.
When he returned to school the next fall, he met Joy. They began to date and discovered they had similar feelings about their openness to foreign missions. Robert and Joy graduated in the spring of 1965 and were married on Aug. 15. They moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to attend seminary. After graduating seminary, Robert pastored for the next several years. Late in 1976, he felt the time had come to settle the matter of mission service once and for all and contacted the International Mission Board.
In 1978, the IMB appointed Robert and Joy missionaries to Chile, where he taught seminary extension classes and evangelical workshops. They served with the IMB for 14 years.
He is survived by Joy, his wife of 59 years; three daughters, Julie (Mark) Flores of Farmville, Virginia, Jennifer Bates and Robin Bates of Flowery Branch, Georgia; two grandchildren; and two foster children, Fritz (Carolyn) Abernathy and Becky Abernathy, of Helen, Georgia.
A funeral service was held Sep. 7, 2024, at Memorial Park Funeral Home, Gainesville, Georgia, with burial in Old Field Cemetery, Sylva, North Carolina.
Donations in his memory may be made to the Lottie Moon Offering, IMB, 3806 Monument Avenue, Richmond, VA, 23230, or online at Generosity Resource Center – IMB Generosity.
Read an obituary here.