September 28 Today in OPC History

Orthodox Presbyterian Church missionaries George and Fumi Uomoto began fifty-seven years of marriage on this date in 1946. Born into Japanese immigrant families, they became the first Nisei (second-generation Japanese-American) missionaries in Japan after World War II. George had graduated with a chemical engineering degree from the University of Washington in 1942. His family had the traditional Buddhist-Shinto background, but his mother took him to a Presbyterian church. Fumi’s mother became a Christian, which led to Fumi attending a Japanese Presbyterian Church in Washington, where she first met George. During World War II, both families were sent in 1942 to an internment camp—the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho. Eight months later, George was able to attend Dallas Theological Seminary, earning his master of theology degree by 1946. Fumi studied nursing in Spokane. Exchanging letters, George proposed to Fumi, and she accepted.

After World War II ended, George wrote to Fumi that he thought God was calling him to be a missionary in Japan and if she didn’t feel the same way, she could break their engagement. At the same time, however, Fumi’s heart was stirred when General MacArthur put out a plea for missionaries to Japan. Both George and Fumi felt separate callings to be missionaries to Japan and soon were married.

The Rev. Robert Atwell encouraged George to study the Reformed faith, so he earned his second master’s from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1951. When the door opened for OPC missionaries to be sent to Japan, George was ordained by the Presbytery of California on September 13, 1951. He and Fumi left with ten suitcases, three children, and sea-sickness pills for a twenty-day journey aboard the SS Topa Topa to Tokyo, where they attended language school for two years. The Uomotos served as missionaries in Sendai and Nakayama for four decades, helping to plant three churches.

They officially retired in 1988 and returned to Seattle in 1991. George, at eighty-four, entered Glory on January 21, 2004, and Fumi, at ninety, on May 4, 2015. Their heritage of eleven children, seventeen grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren includes their son Murray, who followed in their footsteps as a missionary in Japan.

Picture: The Uomoto family and General Secretary John Galbraith at the Philadelphia airport in 1963.