Bob and Keiko Butterfield
Rua Augusto Viana, 84 - Apt. 1001
Ed. Cidade de Itagi - Canela
Salvador, BA 40110-060
Brazil
Email: Bob and Keiko Butterfield

The Butterfields ended their service as PC(USA) mission co-workers in December 2006.

Bob and Keiko Butterfield were appointed in January 2004 to serve at the Instituto Teologico da Bahia (Theological Institute of Bahia, or ITEBA), an interdenominational seminary in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. ITEBA has a commitment to teaching theology in context and has a special ministry to educate the poor and marginalized, especially Afro-Brazilian women.

Bob has a special knack for languages, being fluent in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian and conversant in several others. “I have used language study,” Bob writes, “as a way of getting inside cultures and experiencing them as if they were mine.” From his many cross-cultural experiences, Bob has learned that “contrary to the dominant view in the United States, people are not pretty much the same wherever you go. Instead, every language and every dialect within it are reflections of a different culture. People are different, and their language reveals and reflects their differences.”

Letters from
Bob and Keiko Butterfield

• July 2006
• May 2006
• March 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• October 2005
• August 2005
• June 2005
• March 2005
• November 2004
• September 2004
• June 2004
• May 2004

Immediately before their appointment to ITEBA, Bob was pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ (United Church of Christ), Sterling, Illinois. Prior to that he was pastor of UCC congregations in Brookfield and Wyoming, Illinois. He was instructor of ESL and religion at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois (1991-1994). He was visiting professor of Old Testament at McCormick Seminary in Chicago, Illinois, (1990-1991) and instructor of theology at Loyola University of Chicago, Illinois (1988-1991)

Bob holds a Ph.D. in biblical studies and an M.Div. from the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, Illinois. He has an M.A. in French from the University of Chicago and the University of Paris, and his bachelor’s degree is from Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois.

Bob was ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament by the United Church of Christ in January 1996.

Keiko was born and raised in Chiba Prefecture, just east of Tokyo, Japan, where her parents were small farmers. When she married Bob, she was a teaching assistant in science in the high school from which she had graduated. The couple lived in Japan for three years, where their first child, Sarah, was born. After moving to Chicago for Bob to attend seminary, Keiko worked in the home. When the children were a little older, she worked in the passport section of the Japanese consulate in Chicago, Illinois. While working at the consulate, Keiko enrolled in an intensive massage therapy class at the Soma Institute and began her own business as a massage therapist.

Keiko is a member of First Congregational United Church of Christ (United Church of Christ), DeKalb, Illinois.

The Butterfields are the parents of three adult children, Sarah, Kenji, and Rachel.

Birthdays:
Keiko – May 29
Bob – June 28