He was born in Fukuoka in 1948. His grandfather was a pastor and his father was a missionary.

At the age of ten, when he visited the grave of the famous missionary Robert Livingston, he said he would become a missionary too.

He spent most of his life through the 10th grade in Japan. After that, he went to a university in American and studied drama and poetry. He was very good at taking pictures on the campus.

A turning point of his life was when his father passed away in the summer of 1974. At that time, he was in Sasebo.

Nagasaki has a custom to take Shorobune (spirit boats) around with exploding firecrackers and clanging gongs
in the Obon season (the Festival of the Dead). The noise from the streets brought him a great sense of the futility of Japanese life.

"I want to tell about the truly living God's love and eternal life to those who know only about idols."

He graduated from a theological seminary, and started preaching in Omura in Nagasaki in 1981. He had planned to teach English at a university in Nagasaki City, and sold his furniture and waited for the documents to apply for a teaching visa. However, he never received the documents. When he contacted the university, they said they had hired another person.





He prayed to God in depression. "At that time, I had two dreams. One was coming back to Japan, the other was making my living by camera again. When I released the two dreams to God, a door was opened" Two months later, a job of teaching English in Omura was given to him.

One day the Lord gave him a vision.

In the time of the Warring Sate Period, when Sumitada Omura, Japan's first Christian feudal lord, was reigning in Hizen, there were 80,000 Christians in Omura Fief.

"Make Omura again to be the foremost Christian city in Japan." That's his firm vision, and this church's vision.
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