Ralph Allan SmithRalph Allan Smith, born in 1949, began a serious Christian life after he graduated from Ohio University in 1971. He served in the Navy for two years before he entered Grace Theological Seminary, graduating in 1978 (M. Div.). In 1976, he married his sminary class mate Tsing (Sylvia) Kou, and the two of them arrived Tokyo, Japan in 1981, where they started church planting work with Sylvia's mother and her brother's family. That was the beginning of the Mitaka Evangelical Church. Ralph and Sylvia's son, Ben Zedek, is now the main pastor of the Mitaka Evangelical Church. Their second son, Berek, is an Anglican minister, also serving God in Tokyo, Japan. He is the author of The Baptism of Jesus the Christ as well as Hear My Son: An Examination of Fatherhood of Yahweh in Deuteronomy. Read More Read Less