Tan Siew Nai emigrated to Malaya in 1909 at the age of 18 after her eldest sister, Tan Leah, who had been married to Oh Hock Teck, had unfortunately died in Penang. Mr Oh and Leah had come from Shantou, China, around the turn of the 20th century to seek a better life. As a result, Siew Nai was asked to marry her brother-in-law Oh Hock Teck.

Together, Siew Nai and Oh had five children of their own – two daughters and three sons. Siew Nai was a Baptist but as there was no Baptist church in Penang, she took her family to the Burmah Road Gospel Hall, a Brethren church. Meanwhile, Oh Hock Teck opened his own furniture business at Buckingham Street in  Georgetown, Penang. Later, he was able to invest in rubber planting and tin mining in Kedah and Perlis.

During the early 1930s, the severe economic depression in the United States affected the rubber price in Malaya to the extent that the Oh home at 136 Hutton Lane had to be mortgaged. Mrs Oh did not sit and moan but started a business sewing kebayas using chain stitch embroidery (the kebaya was a type of blouse worn by Straits-born or Peranakan women). When the price of rubber picked up after a few years, she decided to close her business.

Kedah 

Mrs Oh had a cousin, Tan Hee Ee, who lived in Alor Setar, Kedah. She was a widow who had also come to Malaya at the turn of the 20^th century hoping to find a better life for herself and her children. Hee Ee was a staunch Baptist and, unable to find a Baptist church, she prayed daily that one would be established in Alor Setar. In the early 1900s, there was not a single Baptist church in Malaya, North Borneo (Sabah) or Sarawak. Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran (Basel) and Brethren churches were already established then. She had brought her family to join a local congregation for worship but found it "cold and unbiblical"^[1]. So she led her family in worship at her own home instead. Later, when her children grew up and had families of their own, her sons led in the family worship. Nevertheless, Madam Tan Hee Ee continued to pray for a Baptist church to be established in Alor Setar.

A great evangelical revival was happening at that time in mainland China, and John Sung and other evangelists were being greatly used by God to touch the churches there. In 1935, John Sung made his first visit to Penang. He preached powerfully two or three times a day in Mandarin, and the sermons were also interpreted into Hokkien. Mrs Oh was so inspired that she became the chairperson of one of his preaching bands and went to many places to share the gospel! John Sung went several more times to Penang after his initial visit. Mrs Oh would keep a room in her home at 136 Hutton Lane for Sung and also other visiting Chinese pastors and missionaries to stay in while they were in Penang. One of them was Pastor Lim Pue Heng, also a Baptist from Shantou.

Knowing her cousin’s commitment to the Lord, Mrs Oh brought Pastor Lim to Alor Setar where he preached at Madam Tan Hee Ee’s home at 57 Jalan Bahru. Mrs Oh and Pastor Lim were touched by the needs there and were moved by God to begin a Baptist work in Alor Setar. Mrs Oh promised to support it financially, and Pastor Lim returned to China to bring his family to Malaya. Those events led to the establishment of the first Baptist church in Malaya on October 21, 1938 at 59 Jalan Bahru (known today as Jalan Putra). It was then called Kedah Christian Overseas-Chinese Baptist Church. Tan Hee Ee’s prayers were answered at last.

Among the three families who were charter members on October 21, 1938 were Madam Lee Phuy Ghee, Tan Hee Ee and her grandson, John Teh Eng Chek. The work grew from three to 12 families, totalling about 50 people. In 1939, Mrs Oh bought a piece of land with a two-storey bungalow at 2 Jalan Mahdali for the church to use. For two years during the Japanese occupation, Madam Lee, who was a former Presbyterian Bible woman, held the church together. By God’s grace, the worship services were never stopped! 

After the war, normal church life was resumed and the membership grew to 80. Other pastors from China came and went. Their family needs and visa limitations often restricted the duration of their stay. Mrs Oh always seemed to know of pastors from China to connect with and to recommend whenever the church was without one.

With the church growing after the war, it was time to think about a proper church building. God led Mrs Oh to donate to the church the property and bungalow where they had been meeting as well as RM18,000 towards the RM26,000 needed for the planned building. On 20th March 1950, the new beautiful brick and timber worship hall was dedicated to the glory of God. The church was renamed the Overseas-Chinese (Swatow) Baptist Church (OCSBC).

As Mr Oh’s business prospered, he started a rubber estate in Bukit Junun, a rural village about 30km south of Alor Setar. Some of those who came from China and worked there were also Baptists, while others were non-believers. Mrs Oh was inspired that her husband’s estate could also be a mission field. So in 1941, she built a lovely church building on part of the estate. Nestling among the rubber trees, the Bukit Junun Baptist Church was organised with 26 charter members. It came under the care of the leaders of the Baptist church in Alor Setar. Madam Lee Phuy Ghee regularly visited and ministered in Bukit Junun Baptist Church and did so faithfully for about 40 years until her death.

In 1952, Southern Baptist missionary Elizabeth Hale came to live and serve in Alor Setar. She was closely associated with the OCSBC, especially helping out with the English classes which later grew into the Trinity Baptist Church as a daughter church of OCSBC. Hale was also instrumental in outreach to Kuala Kedah and Jitra.

Although it began as a Teochew or Swatow-speaking church, OCSBC gradually changed her medium of communication first to Hokkien, then to Mandarin, the language that the younger generation were more familiar with. As a result, the church finally had to change its name once more, to Alor Setar Baptist Church (ASBC), to be more inclusive of all the diverse groups of people worshipping there.

Penang

Mrs Oh and her family members who lived in Penang initially attended the Burmah Road Gospel Hall as there was then no Baptist church on the island.

In 1953, when the Baptist Foreign Mission Board missionaries Greene and Martha Strother arrived in Penang, Mrs Oh invited them to her home together with two other Baptists, Wayne Siao Wei Yuan and Ho Lock Chee, her nephew. They began to make plans for the establishment of the first Baptist church in Penang. Mrs Oh offered her home as the first meeting place (through the months of April to June 1953) and a growing group of Baptists began gathering at 136 Hutton Lane for weekly worship services.

Meanwhile, the newly arrived missionaries were also busy locating and purchasing a large bungalow at 35 Anson Road, which became known as the “Baptist Mission House”. The group that was meeting in Mrs Oh's house had grown to about 40. When the Mission House building was ready, the Strothers invited them to meet there instead. The group moved there in July 1953. A dedication service was held on August 16, 1953 and the Penang Baptist Church (PBC) was organised with 29 charter members. G.W. Strother was chosen as the honorary pastor, Ho Lok Chee as the evangelist and Wayne Siao served as the deacon.^[2]

In its first year, PBC experienced some difficulties due to the diverse background of its congregation, viz. Chinese born in Malaya as well as immigrants from China and of different dialect groups, mainly Teochew and Cantonese.^[3] Of the Baptists from China, some had been related to the Northern and some to the Southern Baptist Conventions in the USA. The only thing common to this diverse group was their faith in Jesus Christ, and it is to His glory that church grew and remains till today.

It was the plan from the very beginning that PBC would one day have its own property. However, it was only  in 1967, 14 years later, that PBC could move from 35 Anson Road to 224 Macalister Road. That was when the Malaysian Baptist Theological Seminary (MBTS) also moved to its new property at Batu Ferringghi and the Mission House was subsequently sold. The delay was due mainly to the City Council refusing to give its permission for PBC to meet at its Macalister Road property. The approval was finally granted in 1973 even though the land had been purchased in 1957. 

PBC, as the first Baptist church on Penang Island, has "mothered" a number of outreach efforts and churches over the years. In 1954, it began an English service at the Baptist Mission House, which then grew into the Georgetown Baptist Church on October 14, 1956.

Mrs Oh Hock Teck remained a devout and active Christian throughout her life. Several of her grandchildren have also actively devoted their lives to the service of Christ and His kingdom in missions.

Grandchild Raymond Oh, reminiscing about her, recalled that she was a "real Teochew matriarch, who ran the household of 20-30 people in 136 Hutton Lane very efficiently" whenever Mr Oh was away in Kedah and Perlis managing his rubber estate and tin mine there. He remembered her as "very frugal", but always generous to beggars. "The household never turned a beggar away without giving some food like a bag of rice or some money to him or her," he said.^[4] 

She was also very strict about having the daily family evening devotion of about 15 minutes after dinner, unless there was a visiting pastor or evangelist in the house. "The attendance was compulsory for young and old with Bible study and the hymn singing was in Hokkien. Ah Mah (grandmother in Hokkien) loved singing hymns and her voice was noted to be loudest of all!" recalled another grandchild, Nelly Oh.^[5]

"Ah Mah's most outstanding trait was that she was God-fearing, God-honouring and she loved God with all her heart. Any matter that had to do with God or the church, she would willingly go out of her way to help. She taught her children and grandchildren to always kneel down to pray, with the associated teaching that 'We are to kneel down ONLY to God, never to people'," recalled Angela Oh, another grandchild.^[6]

Mrs Oh passed away in Singapore from cancer of the gall bladder in 1958 at the age of 67. Her husband died a year later in 1959.