News
Rev. Dr Toshihiro Takami, honorary president of the Asian Rural Institute (ARI) in Japan passed away at the Maronie Nursing Care Facility on 6 September. He was 91 years old.
Takami was born in the northeast part of the Chinese People’s Republic, formerly known as Manchuria, and returned to Japan at the age of 10. He attended college at Doane University, and seminary at Yale Divinity School and Fuller Seminary. An ordained minister of the United Church of Christ in Japan, he served as director of the Southeast Asian Course of the Seminary for Rural Evangelism from 1962 until founding the ARI in 1973.
From 1973 – 1993, he was chair of the board, and he was director of the ARI Leaders Training Course from 1973 until 1989. He continued as the honorary president from 1993. In 1996 he received the Ramon Magsaysay award for Peace and International Understanding. In 2012 he received the William Sloane Coffin Award for Peace and Justice – Yale Divinity School.
A farewell service at ARI is planned for December.
The Takami Family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations in Takami's memory be made to the Toshihiro Takami Scholarship Fund, c/o the American Friends of ARI: www.friends-ari.org/support-ari
