Baptist Churches in Pre-WWII Imperial Japan
This album highlights the Wada family Christian missionary work in Japan before 1930. The Wada family started and served at several churches in Northern Japan as well as the Tokyo and Hiroshima areas before the American Baptist Home Missions Society asked the family to come to the United States for missionary work.
Masahiko Wada was brought up in a strict Buddhist family. From the age of three, he studied under a Buddhist monk at a temple school. While attending college, he came upon a little girl who was lost on her way to church. Masahiko took her to church and eventually started attending a bible study class taught by a missionary with the Salvation Army. After graduating with a law degree from Tokyo Imperial University, Rev. Wada continued his education by attending The Baptist Theological Seminary of Yokohama which was established by Albert Arnold Bennett, a missionary of the American Baptist Missionary Union (now called Kanto Gakuin University). It was in Yokohama that two Baptist missionaries Jonathan Goble and Nathan Brown established the First Baptist Church in Japan. The Yokohama Baptist theology was a more evangelical approach to Christianity. This probably explains Rev. Wada’s focus on evangelism and missionary work. One of its early leaders, Honda Yoichi, became the president of the YMCA’s governing body. Rev Wada went on overseas missionary trips to Japan occupied Manchuria, Korea and Siberia for the Japan YMCA.
Great Grandmother Kuni Anazawa Wada learned to speak and write the English language from Baptist missionaries in northern Japan. The missionaries were Rev. William and Lucinda Axling, who arrived in Japan in 1901. She also learned German from her piano teacher and French from attending a private French Catholic High School in Sendai.
Some years later while back in the US, William Axling presented Grandmother Mustu, the eldest daughter, a signed book with the title “ Japan at the Midcentury: Leaves from Life. The book cover was hand drawn by Rev. Axling. Grandmother was very involved in the Christian movement in Japan and attended many of the Baptist leadership and training programs.
This album is just in its infancy, so check back for updates. There are hundreds of photos and documents of the Wada family missionary work in Japan, Manchuria, Korea, Siberia and other areas in Russia.
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