“And church gives me time to reflect on whether I spent the week doing something in the service of others, or because I came up with an answer to a problem and I can't wait to blow my own horn and say, ‘David Oh has the answer!'"
His sister, Emma Oh, plays the piano. His wife, Heesun, and their children Hannah, 5; Joshua, 2, and Daniel, four months, are there. So are his mother, Za Yung Oh; sister Grace, and brothers Henry and Chul Ho — who lives in Bucks County and teases Oh about still living in a house, two blocks from the church, that their father rehabbed for Korean immigrants coming here for an education and a good job.
"We've all moved away, but David stays in Philadelphia," Chul Ho says, smiling affectionately at his kid brother. "Why? You'll have to ask him."
"Being a pastor, my father, the late Rev. Ki Hang Oh, took the hard road and remained faithful to his vision," Oh says. "There were gangs back in those days. Crack. Prostitutes. Murders in Cobbs Creek Park. From the time I was very young, I kept asking him, ‘Why live here?' His answer was, ‘This is a God-blessed neighborhood.' As I grew older, I came to understand what he meant and to agree with him. It's about the people, the spiritual values."
Oh says that even in his 80s, his father was carrying rolls of roofing paper onto the roofs of the houses he had rehabbed for immigrant students, working in the service of others until his death in 2006.
"It's not until your father dies that you realize how you keep trying to live up to his influence," Oh says. "Other people want to do something exciting on Sunday. I just want peace." n
— Dan Geringer
