In 1923, Rev. Takie Okumura wrote to Rev. Wada and asked him to come to Hawaii to minister to the growing Japanese population.   Rev. Wada wanted to go to Hawaii, but the church people and missionaries wanted the Wada family to stay in Japan.  The Kuroda brothers and Rev. Franklin Ray, a Baptist missionary, helped provide an opportunity for Rev. Wada to go to a church in Kure, Hiroshima-ken.


Shortly after the family left Tokyo, the famous Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroyed over half of Tokyo.  It was in Tokyo where the Wada family became close friends with Rev. Herbert Nicholson and his wife Madeline.  Madeline was from Pasadena, CA and her Quaker family was originally from Philadelphia, PA.  They would reunite later in life in southern CA before WWII and again later in the internment camps.