April 11, 2001

Sawatdii Pii Mai! (Happy New Year)

We send our New Year greeting this year on the traditional Thai New Year. This year, Easter happens to coincide with the Thai New Year, thus we wish you a Happy Easter, too. Christian churches around Thailand will have a doubly blessed holiday. Thai New Year is celebrated for several days. The young honor the old during this time. Families are together and share food and time together. We wish you and your family a similarly joyous time to celebrate the glory of Easter.

Our work at Payap University continues to be challenging. Every day we encounter new opportunities that test our abilities. We are both involved in administrative work that requires us to attend many meetings, create new programs and solve problems associated with the personnel and programs we oversee. This can be challenging in a U.S. setting, but add to that work environment the factors of a language and culture different from one's own and you have our situations. The longer we remain in Thailand, the more we recognize and try to understand "the Thai way." Hopefully, as we now near retirement, we are "getting it right" in the eyes of our host employers and we can make useful contributions during our last five years of service to the university.

It has been some time since we last communicated. The academic year (June-March) has just ended. During that time, it seems we are constantly on the go. John teaches in both the Thai program of the seminary and in the English program for exchange students under the International Programs Office. His major job, however, is serving as Director of the Institute for the Study of Religion and Culture. This year he went to Seattle with two Thai colleagues, one Buddhist and one Christian, to speak at Christian churches, Buddhist temples, and various NGOs about inter-religious relations and inter-religious dialogue in Thailand. The three also attended the Sixth International Conference of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. While at the conference, he invited the Society's executive committee to consider coming to Payap University and the Institute for its next international meeting in August 2003. In November last year, he learned that the organizers accepted this invitation. It will mean lots of work, but a wonderful opportunity to introduce the work of the Institute to a much larger international audience. (About 500 persons participated in the last conference, and John hopes that approximately that number will be coming for the 2003 conference!) John also believes and hopes that hosting the conference will have a major impact on the way Thai Christians view other forms of religious faith and on how they relate their Christian faith and mission to others.

Last August Martha was promoted to become Payap University's Vice President for International Affairs. She is doing much the same work as before, but now chairs more committees and attends more administrators' meetings! Her biggest challenges for the new academic year will be to establish the International College and a Development Office. We both need your prayers and encouragement for these responsibilities.

Home assignment

This July and August we will be in the U.S. on "home assignment." The assignment will begin with our attending the meeting of the presidents of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities. Martha will represent Dr. Boonthong Poocharoen, the president of Payap, at the meeting, which this year will be held in Edinburgh, Scotland. John will be using this opportunity to tell others about the Institute. Following the meeting in Edinburgh, we shall spend about two months in the States visiting family and some of our supporting churches. We shall also be attending, along with other mission personnel on "home assignment," the missionary sharing conference that is sponsored by the Worldwide Ministries Division of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This year's conference will be held in Louisville. During our time in the States we plan to be mainly on the East Coast and in the Midwest. We shall be writing congregations in those areas about the dates when we shall be available to visit and speak. If you would be interested in having us come to speak at your church, please let us know and we shall try to include you in our schedule. As you probably know, according to the policy of the Worldwide Ministries Division, congregations inviting mission personnel to speak are responsible for travel and lodging costs.

In August we shall be attending to some health matters and then returning to Thailand for the beginning of the new term for the International Division. (Payap now operates on two calendars—the Thai calendar, which begins in June and runs through the end of February, for Thai students, and the American calendar, September through the end of April, for our international students.) This year we are expecting an enrollment of almost 100 international students and about 9,000 Thai students. John will also be busy preparing for the next Sinclair Thompson Lecture Series, which will be held in June 2002, and for the International Conference to be held in August 2003. In addition, several international resident scholars will be coming to the Institute next year.

We greatly appreciate your thoughts and prayers for our work. Although we realize that we do not write to you as often as we would like and should, we assure you that we think of you often and we are most grateful for your prayers and support. We also enjoy receiving messages from you and occasional visits.

In that regard, we urge you to think about arranging study tours to see Christian work in Thailand and to learn about the mission of the Church in this part of the world. The Institute is pleased to arrange special programs focusing on what it means to be Christian and do Christian mission in a religiously plural world. These programs range from two to three weeks and can accommodate groups as small as ten persons and as large as thirty persons. At the present time, the total cost, including international and domestic travel, lodging, food, lectures, etc., is about $2,000 per person for two weeks and $3,000 for three weeks. We think that the programs are special in giving you not only an exceptional learning and spiritual experience but also an entertaining and enjoyable travel experience.

May God bless and lead you in your local ministries as well as in your participation in the worldwide mission of the Christian Church.

Peace and Love in Christ,

Martha and John Butt

The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 171