Sadaichi Kuzuhara was born in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. He studied at the Nawa Insect School in Gifu Prefecture and attended the Shosoku English School in Chiyoda, Tokyo. When he was eighteen, he came to Christ at an evangelistic meeting held by Yoshigoro Akiyama at the Gospel Hall in Kanda, Tokyo.

 

After graduating from seminary, Rev. Kuzuhara ministered at the Tottori and Hachioji Churches. In 1913, Bishop Juji Nakada of the OMS Japanese Holiness Church appointed him to the church headquarters in Japan, where he worked as a translator and interpreter for OMS missionaries, including Charles Cowman and E.A. Kibourne. He translated many books, including Preacher and Prayer by E.M. Bounds, a bestseller among Japanese churches. He worked at the OMS headquarters until he left for the United States in 1919,

 

He initially arrived in Takoma, WA, but soon moved to Kentucky to study at the Asbury Seminary. In 1921, he came to Los Angeles, CA, receiving an appointment by Bishop Nakada to evangelize to the Japanese Issei immigrants and Japanese American communities in Southern California. He was the first pastor of what is now the Los Angeles Holiness Church, which he shepherded from a meeting house at the corner of West 36th and Denker Streets. In 1935, he became the first bishop of the OMS Holiness Church of America, independent from the OMS Japanese Holiness Church. During World War II, he was incarcerated at the Amache concentration camp, also known as the Granada War concentration camp, in Colorado.

 

In 1943, Rev. Kuzuhara resettled in Chicago, IL, and started the Japanese Christian Church at Moody. He retired in 1957 but continued speaking at church meetings and retreats and pastored the Makiki Christian Church in Hawaii for two years. 

 

Rev. Kuzuhara met his wife, Kiyoka Yamada, in 1905 at the Seisho Gakin, formerly the Tokyo Biblical Seminary. She joined her husband in America in 1923. They had eleven children; nine grew to adulthood, and two died during infancy. They were married for twenty-nine years until she died from heart disease in 1938 at fifty-one years ago. Rev. Kuzuhara never remarried and lived to the grand age of 101 years old. His eldest son, Chiaki Kuzuhara, followed in his father's footsteps and became a minister. Rev. Chiaki Kuzuhara was ordained in 1939 and served at the Los Angeles Holiness Church.