Edvard grew up in Shanxi, a province in North Central China. There he experienced the Second World War and saw his father Peter Torjesen, a Norwegian evangelist, shelter wartime refugees until he was killed by a Japanese dive-bomb in 1939.

After the war, Edvard came to Canada and studied at Toronto Bible College (Tyndale), graduating with an undergraduate degree in 1947.

He went on to serve as a missionary in Asia, becoming a language expert and working on translating scripture into Taiwanese and Mongolian dialects. He also published Fredrik Franson: A Model for Worldwide Evangelism in1983).

In 1990, Edvard and his family returned to Shanxi for the unveiling of a monument to his father.

After a special appeal from the governor, the Torjesen family founded the Colorado-based Shanxi Evergreen Service, a non-profit humanitarian group that developed public benefit services for the common people. Edvard served as Executive Director of Evergreen for several years.

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