Hello

Pastor Ogawa was born in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, in 1969. He had never seen a Bible until he was 18 because there were no Christians among his relatives and friends.

​

When he was 19, he came to Toronto to study English. At that time, he was invited by a friend to go to the Toronto Japanese SDA Church. When he was 20 years old, he took Bible studies with Pastor Koei Aka and was then baptized. He left Toronto and started studying at Canadian Union College (Burman University) in Calgary, AB, and, during his studies, he ended up also serving for two years as a student missionary in Belem, Brazil. During his work in Brazil, he witnessed the lives of many poor children and prayed eagerly for God to help them. As he prayed, he received God’s calling to become a pastor and to be able to help the people.

​

After working in Brazil, he returned to CUC in Calgary and began to study once again. But, when he told his parents that he wanted to study theology, his parents were opposed to this and he was made to return to Japan.

After returning to Japan, he lived in the church’s mother’s room and had more than 20 part-time jobs to be able to cover his own tuition fees and he was able to finish his studies in theology receiving many blessings from God.

​

After studying theology, he worked as a pastor at the Tokyo Amanuma Church and Shizuoka Church.

During the first year of working in Amanuma Church, he prayed to God to give him someone who would be perfect for him and his ministry and the next day, he met his now wife Tomoko. He soon found out that she was praying for the same thing and them meeting was a gift from Heaven. While working in Japan, they were blessed with their first 2 children Aimi and Shinji

​

He also worked at Kitaura Saniku Junior High School as a chaplain and the church pastor. After that, he served as a missionary in Seoul, South Korea for 6 years and established the Yongsan Japanese Church. They were then also blessed with 2 more boys Nozomi and Sho.

​

He took his family and returned to Japan and worked as a chaplain and pastor at the Okinawa Medical Center and God lead him to Andrews University, in the United States, to continue his studies for two more years.

​

26 years after getting baptized at the Toronto Japanese SDA Church, in 2016, God sent him back to where he was baptized in Toronto, but, this time, as a pastor. He has been our pastor for the past 4 years since he started working in Toronto, being lead by God’s wonderful guidance.

​

What’s important to Pastor Ogawa is for him to be able to cherish daily prayers and also, the challenge of new evangelism opportunities.

​

Pastor is blessed with a family of six – his wife Tomoko, his daughter Aimi and 3 sons, Shinji, Nozomi and Sho and now, his church family at the Toronto Japanese SDA Church.