Dan & Rosie Button
Global Teams Missionary since 2000
From
Dan is from USA, Rosie is from UK
Missionaries to
Uganda
Currently on
Field Assignment
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Dan first got interested in missions at the age of sixteen when his mother persuaded him to go on a short-term mission trip to Mexico. Although he went reluctantly, God spoke to him strongly through that experience. He returned home to St Paul, Minnesota, feeling called to long term missions in the future. He studied physics and engineering at Bethel University, then architecture at the U of MN, and in 1991 joined the Africa Inland Mission for a 2-year church planting outreach to an unreached area. The project he joined was disbanded at the last minute, but Dan was convinced of God’s leading to Kenya, and since plans and support were in place, he went to see what God might have in store. He worked for six months with AIM in Nairobi, then spent the next year and a half living with a Kenyan pastor, Daniel Lemadada and his family, in a remote unreached area of northern Kenya, planting a church among the semi-nomadic Samburu-Rendille tribes. They built up a mission station, beginning with the tin hut they would live in, and Dan later used his architecture skills to design and build a permanent pastor’s residence & meeting hall for the church they planted there, still alive and active today. Through this time Dan became convinced God was calling him to longer-term missions in Africa. After returning to the US in 1993, he completed an M.Div at Columbia International University, SC with an emphasis in theology & missions. His love for the study of theology, and a re-assessment of the strategic value and need for higher level theological training in Africa, helped change his focus from church planting to theological education.
During his studies at CIU, Dan spent a semester at a well-known missions college in the UK, All Nations Christian College. There he met a young English lady called Rosie, who had, like him, spent two years in short term missions in Africa, and was also planning to return to Africa long term. Rosie had grown up in Devon, in the south west of England, and had felt called to missions as a teenager. Her grandparents had been missionaries in Japan, and her parents were and still are active in local outreach. Rosie had taken a degree in Theology at St Johns College, Cambridge, and gained some experience as a teacher. In 1992 she joined Africa Evangelical Fellowship, and went to teach in a girls’ school in rural Zambia, called Mukinge. Although not living in a tin hut as Dan had done, it was very remote and very rural. She loved the experience and was sure God wanted her to be in Africa longer term. So she went to All Nations in 1995-6, to take an MA in Missiology.
In the months following their time at All Nations, Rosie joined Crosslinks, a British evangelical mission society, and was assigned to teach at the Anglican Theological College in Harare, Zimbabwe. Dan returned to CIU to complete his MDiv. They got engaged in June 1997 and six weeks later Rosie headed to Zimbabwe. They got married a year later in July 1998 back in the UK, honeymooned in Minnesota, and then headed to Zimbabwe where Rosie had already set up home for them. Soon after this the Buttons joined Global Teams (rather uniquely by email) to have a US connection as well, and were finally able to meet the team and join formally during their first home leave in the fall of 2000.
They were both involved in teaching Theology in Zimbabwe, Rosie at the Anglican training college, Bishop Gaul College, and Dan at an interdenominational evangelical college called Domboshawa Theological College, where he became Academic Dean and occasional Acting Principal. They were also very involved in a local church, All Souls, where they frequently preached and led services, and in teaching TEE (Theological Education by Extension). During the four years they lived in Zimbabwe, they had their two children, Abigail born in 2000, and Alexander born in 2001. In early 2002 it became clear that the rapidly deteriorating political situation was affecting the church, and in the end the Buttons had to leave the country in June 2002, although they had hoped to stay much longer.
By God’s grace, they already had an invitation outstanding to be visiting lecturers at a missions college in Gloucester, England, called Redcliffe College. So they were able to move there as a family, remaining on staff for an academic year, while waiting to discover what God had in mind for them next. Despite plans for South Africa, God providentially opened an unexpected door, with an invitation out of the blue to join Uganda Christian University, from Peggy and Steve Noll (Vice Chancellor of UCU), who incidentally are also mission partners Global Teams. The Buttons have been working at UCU since August, 2003.
During his studies at CIU, Dan spent a semester at a well-known missions college in the UK, All Nations Christian College. There he met a young English lady called Rosie, who had, like him, spent two years in short term missions in Africa, and was also planning to return to Africa long term. Rosie had grown up in Devon, in the south west of England, and had felt called to missions as a teenager. Her grandparents had been missionaries in Japan, and her parents were and still are active in local outreach. Rosie had taken a degree in Theology at St Johns College, Cambridge, and gained some experience as a teacher. In 1992 she joined Africa Evangelical Fellowship, and went to teach in a girls’ school in rural Zambia, called Mukinge. Although not living in a tin hut as Dan had done, it was very remote and very rural. She loved the experience and was sure God wanted her to be in Africa longer term. So she went to All Nations in 1995-6, to take an MA in Missiology.
In the months following their time at All Nations, Rosie joined Crosslinks, a British evangelical mission society, and was assigned to teach at the Anglican Theological College in Harare, Zimbabwe. Dan returned to CIU to complete his MDiv. They got engaged in June 1997 and six weeks later Rosie headed to Zimbabwe. They got married a year later in July 1998 back in the UK, honeymooned in Minnesota, and then headed to Zimbabwe where Rosie had already set up home for them. Soon after this the Buttons joined Global Teams (rather uniquely by email) to have a US connection as well, and were finally able to meet the team and join formally during their first home leave in the fall of 2000.
They were both involved in teaching Theology in Zimbabwe, Rosie at the Anglican training college, Bishop Gaul College, and Dan at an interdenominational evangelical college called Domboshawa Theological College, where he became Academic Dean and occasional Acting Principal. They were also very involved in a local church, All Souls, where they frequently preached and led services, and in teaching TEE (Theological Education by Extension). During the four years they lived in Zimbabwe, they had their two children, Abigail born in 2000, and Alexander born in 2001. In early 2002 it became clear that the rapidly deteriorating political situation was affecting the church, and in the end the Buttons had to leave the country in June 2002, although they had hoped to stay much longer.
By God’s grace, they already had an invitation outstanding to be visiting lecturers at a missions college in Gloucester, England, called Redcliffe College. So they were able to move there as a family, remaining on staff for an academic year, while waiting to discover what God had in mind for them next. Despite plans for South Africa, God providentially opened an unexpected door, with an invitation out of the blue to join Uganda Christian University, from Peggy and Steve Noll (Vice Chancellor of UCU), who incidentally are also mission partners Global Teams. The Buttons have been working at UCU since August, 2003.
UCU became a university in 1997 but its roots go back to 1913 as Bishop Tucker Theological College, where for 85 years the majority of clergy for the Anglican Church throughout Uganda and East Africa were trained. UCU has added programs in Education, Law, Business, Social Work, Mass Comm, Nursing, Development, Sciences and IT, while still training most of the Anglican clergy in the region. Dan was ordained in the Church of Uganda, an evangelical Anglican denomination, as deacon in 2004 and priest in 2005. He is currently working part time on a PhD through St Johns College, Nottingham, UK.
Dan teaches in the Theology Faculty, and is also Head of Department for Foundation Studies which is responsible for teaching the core Christian courses (OT, NT, Christian Ethics and Worldviews) as well as life skills courses (Health & Wholeness, Computing, Mathematics, and Writing & Study Skills) to all students of UCU. We have grown from 2000 students when we first arrived, to 7000 students now in 2009, so Dan’s department has a huge administrative task to handle. Dan is also chairman of the African Areopagus Society (a campus based organization promoting dialogue between faith & science), and patron of the international students’ association.
Rosie taught Greek for several years, as well as Old Testament subjects, but she is less involved in teaching currently, due to growing children and a long drive to school each day. Rosie still meets regularly with the women theology students, and also orders books for our 300 theology students and many alumni, through various organizations which offer free or subsidized books in the developing world.
Abigail and Alex are now 9 and 7 years old, and attend an international primary school in a suburb of Kampala. Abigail loves animals, writing and drawing, whilst Alex is more into action, loves football (soccer), climbing, puzzles and technic legos among many other things. We have now worked for 6 amazing and fulfilling years in Uganda, watching God providentially use his people (hundreds of committed African believers and a few overseas partners) raise up a new Christian University to become a center of excellence in the heart of Africa.