“that death isn’t the end”

By Yiyi Zhang, 2018
Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel

This episode is from an interview that Yiyi Zhang conducted with Charles Drew, who is retired pastor of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church and resides in New York with his wife. Charles, or Charlie to many people is not only a pastor, he is a dear friend who is deeply compassionate, passionate and honest. The interview was about the ups and downs of Charlie’s faith journey in which he shared his questions about faith in these years. In this episode, Charlie shared about his father’s faith and what happened to his father at the end of his life.

Yiyi Zhang is a first-year student in OHMA. She was drawn to Oral History because of the compassion and deep listening practiced in interviews. Her current oral history works focus on bring deeper understanding to different religious traditions and complicate the existing stereotypes on what it means to have faith. 

Prior to coming to OHMA, she did both her B.A. and first M.A. in Philosophy. Yiyi has always been interested in “how should I live” this fundamentally philosophical question. Her works and everyday contemplation all serve to reach a better answer to this question.