OZASA

Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Thursday, March 20, 2014 at 07:24:34 :

Independent Journal
Friday, May 7, 1976
Page 4

Rev. Raymond Ozasa

Funeral for the Rev. Raymond Ozasa of Corte Madera, past minister of the Japanese Baptist Mission of Tiburon Baptist Church, will be held Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Halsted and Co., 1123 Sutter Street, San Francisco.

Ozasa, 44, died Wednesday in a San Francisco hospital after a lengthy illness. He was minister of the Japanese Baptist Mission of 19th Avenue Baptist Church in San Francisco at the time of his death.

Before moving to the United States 13 years ago, Ozasa was pastor of a United Church of Christ in Japan. He received his bachelor’s degree in theology from Kwansei Gakuin University in Nishinomiya, Japan, and his masters of divinity degree in 1969 from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley.

In 1969, Ozasa and his wife, Juniko, were named home missionaries for Japanese members of the Baptist church by the home mission board of the Southern Baptist Convention. He worked with the Japanese at Berkeley United Methodist Church and in 1968 launched the Japanese language mission at the Tiburon church for the more than 200 Japanese families living in Marin County.

Ozasa also led mission groups in Fairfield, Vallejo and Sacramento and had served as chairman of the Japanese Church Federation of Northern California, San Francisco Area.

He was moderator of a religious radio program, “Strength for Tomorrow,” aired Sunday evenings on station KBRG in San Francisco.

A native of Kyoto, Japan, Ozasa had retained his Japanese citizenship. He is survived by his wife, and a daughter, Emiko, of Corte Madera and his parents, Mrs. and Mrs. Yasaburo Ozasa, and two brothers and four sisters, all of Japan.