Reverend Khoo Cheng Hoe was born in Sin Oan, a rice-growing village near Xiamen, Fujian Province, China in 1896 into a staunchly Buddhist family. When he was six, he, his father Khoo Thuan Yak and two of Cheng Hoe’s stepmothers migrated to Penang in Malaya.^[1]

In Penang, Cheng Hoe was enrolled in the Anglo-Chinese School, an English school started by American Methodist missionaries. At the school, all the students were required to attend chapel service. Cheng Hoe came to know Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour there through the Christian teaching and observing the everyday lives of the missionaries who taught at the school. He was the first Khoo in the Khoo clan of Sin Oan village to become a Christian.

Transformed by Jesus Christ, Cheng Hoe dedicated his life completely to the Lord and enrolled at the James Hamilton Seminary in Singapore to be equipped as a minister. There, he met Kwan Chin Poh, a fine Christian woman who was studying at the Eveland Seminary. They were married in March 1919 and returned to Penang, Malaya to set up residence there. 

The family home “Bethany” was always open and over the years, their 10 children learnt to be flexible, coping with many different situations as church members came and went for counselling, prayer and fellowship. 

During the Japanese occupation, the young people who included the youths of the English-speaking congregation of Madras Lane church and their friends, regarded “Bethany” as their second home and the family would share their meals with whoever turned up.

Reverend Khoo Cheng Hoe started preaching at the age of 18 in a small, tin-roofed church in Penang. In 1916, at the age of 20, Reverend Khoo was put in charge of the Chinese Methodist Church at Madras Lane, Penang. In 1924, when he was just 28, the Malaya Annual conference of the Methodist Church elected him as the lay delegate to the General Conference held in Springfield, Massachusetts, US. 

As the membership and attendance grew, the church had to move into larger premises twice. He chaired the church building committee and with God’s providence, the new Madras Lane Chinese Methodist Church was completed in 1938 and the congregation moved there permanently the following year.

Reverend Khoo Cheng Hoe was also the principal of the then Anglo Chinese Continuation School from 1933-1948.^[2]He also co-founded a Chinese school with other leaders from different denominations to educate and impart the Christian ethos. He was involved in raising funds for the school building and recruiting Christian teachers from China. The Union Institution, better known as the Heap Hoe School, was built in 1938. It was a private school from kindergarten level to middle school.

In late 1938, Dr John Sung was invited by Reverend Khoo to speak and conduct evangelistic meetings at the Madras Lane Chinese Methodist Church. Reverend Khoo’s daughter Oon Bee^[3] who attended those meetings wrote, “Hundreds were converted and there was such a spiritual quickening and revival in all the Chinese churches. It was as though the winds of spiritual renewal had blown like a gale into the Church.”^[4] Dr Sung initiated house groups and chose and trained disciples to go out two by two to witness and preach the Good News. Reverend Khoo was in charge of the “Gospel Band” and his two eldest sons, Oon Soo and Oon Teik, were chosen to preach on the streets of Penang. 

With the growth in numbers, some new converts had to travel long and far to go to the Madras Lane Church. The Lord gave a vision to Reverend Khoo to buy two pieces of land in Jelutong and Ayer Itam, close to bus stops, at a bargain price. All church members donated or raised funds to build a church on each of those two pieces of land. Today, the Jelutong Methodist Church and the Ayer Itam Methodist Church have become home churches to many.

Always the visionary who understood the needs of his growing congregation, Reverend Khoo started an English service for the English-speaking young people, mostly children of the congregants of the Madras Lane Chinese Methodist Church who found it hard to understand the sermons in Hokkien. 

Despite opposition from the American pastors and laity of the Wesley Methodist Church, the English-speaking section of the Chinese Methodist Church started in 1939. As the ordained pastor, Reverend Khoo preached on Sundays and was totally involved in all activities. After the Japanese occupation of Malaya ended, the formation of the Boys’ Brigade, Girls' Life Brigade and Sunday School attracted more young people to join the church.

During the Japanese occupation of Malaya from December 1941 to August 1945, Reverend Khoo Cheng Hoe was the first and only pastor in Penang who boldly took the initiative to obtain permission from the Japanese regime to conduct worship services. Every Monday, he was required to submit his sermon to the Japanese Kempeitai (military police headquarters) for review. Sometimes, the Japanese military police would send staff to Madras Lane church services to spy on them.

Khoo Oon Bee wrote: “The Japanese manager of the bank where my brothers Oon Soo, Oon Eng and I worked once asked to visit my parents at home. He brought a large hamper of goodies and told my parents he could see that we three were different from the other bank employees. 

“We found out he was a Naval Officer and a Christian. It was a pleasure to see him in the congregation worshipping with us on some Sundays.”^[5]

On a Sunday in 1948, Reverend Khoo suffered a stroke while driving to church and was paralysed on his left side. Doctors gave him nine months to live but by the grace of God, he lived for another nine years. 

Dr Ho Seng Ong, the principal of Anglo-Chinese School, and later Mr Goh Kim Leong took over the English service at Madras Lane church. The English-speaking church was admitted to the Malaya Annual Conference, marking the birth of Trinity Methodist Church in 1957.

Reverend Khoo Cheng Hoe’s faithful service was not confined to Penang. Prior to the Japanese occupation of Malaya, in the 1930s, he made several visits to his hometown of Sin Oan in Fujian Province. The whole rice-growing village belonged to the Sin Kang Khoo Clan. Reverend Khoo was burdened by how he could help his kinsmen live a better life and learn about the Christian faith. 

Led by the Holy Spirit, he bought two pieces of land. Later, he paid for the building of a primary school and a church. He entrusted the running of the school to the Khoo Clan leadership. God led him to a Christian woman named Goh Phaik Choo, who was originally from Singapore but had married and settled down in the village. She and other Christians in the village started the Sin Kang village church. Reverend Khoo contributed to the upkeep of these two institutions. 

During the Cultural Revolution in China, both the school and the church stopped functioning. Faithful elders of the church had to pay a Communist cadre who occupied the church building to move out. After repairing and cleaning up the church, they applied to the Council of Religious Affairs Bureau for approval to form a Three Self Church.  

Oon Bee and some of her siblings visited the church in 2008. She wrote: “… the church was overflowing with over 100 worshippers with a good many standing outside. There was Sunday School for the children and adults, prayer meetings and choir practice. It would have blessed my father’s heart that the seed of his vision had reaped the harvest of gospel believing Chinese kinsmen, women and children.”^[6]

Reverend Khoo was called home to the Lord on March 7, 1957. In his eulogy in the August 1957 edition of The Malaysia Message (later renamed The Methodist Message), Reverend Ong Chiak Ghee described him as “a Pillar of the Chinese Methodist Church, Penang and a great educationist”.^[7]

Oon Bee summed up her father this way:

“Father was a born leader, a leader not by choice, but by a consistent life of obedience to God. The Lord had indeed blessed him as a visionary with leadership qualities. He was humble, but courageous in speaking up for the needy and was always sought after for counsel and foresight in the community. From Papa, I learned Christian standards in leadership, faithfulness, humility, and energy in serving God and humankind, I learned to fear the Lord through His Word. When Papa breathed his last, it was a peaceful and fitful ending of a life that had faithfully run and finished the course of the highest calling on earth.”^[8]