Jeremy & Elsha Unite

13 July 2019

Dear friends and family, we are tying the knot soon and we're so glad you can share the moment with us! Each of you have been part of our journey and we thank you for having blessed our lives with your friendship, love and wisdom. We can't wait to celebrate with you! #JeremyWedsElsha

Our Love Story
First Times and Second Chances

Our story began in April 2010, in Christ Evangelical Reformed Church (CERC) in Bandar Sunway. CERC was a new shoplot church, hardly the size of a tiny oblong café, with bookshelves on the left side of its glassy entrance. It was in front of these bookshelves that we met for the first time. We were young college students then, bright-eyed and optimistic about life ahead.

Little did we know that the introduction by the bookshelves was the beginning of many 'firsts' together.

Elsha: Jeremy was the typical college jock, with his bad-boy air and easy charm. I was a nerdy medical student from Sabah, studying in International Medical University (IMU), always having my nose in the books and my head in the clouds. I remember what he was wearing – a plain white shirt, a black vest and a hippy necklace of some sort. He introduced himself as Jerome's brother (a friend of mine) and asked me how old I thought he was. I said, "26," but he was only 18 at the time. I was 20. There was definitely no "love at first sight."

Jeremy: I didn't exist to her for 4 years, from 2010-2013, even though we sat through 11 weeks of the church's membership course together in 2010, meeting weekly. We swore to church membership on the same day, 31 October 2010, and our profile photos are next to each other on the membership wall, but she has no memory of me!

Elsha: I remember a common friend, Joel Lee, asking me, who I would hypothetically marry in 7 years, when we were all having lunch in KFC in Subang Parade in 2010. I said, "Maybe Jeremy Leng in 7 years?" without much thought.

There really were no sparks, though. The only sparks that flew between us in 2010 were angry ones during our first tense encounter at an outdoor youth camp (White Water Summer Camp), with me as Assistant Producer (AP). Jeremy was supposed to deliver on some paper lanterns and a plastic boat with paddles for the children, and he had not.

Jeremy: She was so emotional that time. All I asked at campsite was, "Where are we going?" and she said, "Don't ask so many questions, just get in the car!" I got scolded right away… I'll always remember that!"

Elsha: Fast forward to 2013, we had our first major project working closely together for White Water Summer Camp 2013, this time with Jer as AP, and me as Secretary. I thought, "Wow, he really is passionate and committed and hardworking and so FOCUSED, a pretty good leader, and his plans were well thought-out".

Jeremy: We got along really well, we were on the same page in terms of work processes. She was really helpful as my secretary in this camp project.

In 2015, I decided to ask Elsha out to see if we could work. The first 'official date' happened in a shop in Bangsar, a Chinese shop called Chatterbox.

Elsha: Our first major fight happened when I realized he was nothing like me, and the attraction to his bad-boy vibes wore off. He liked movies, and TV, and sports, and he was an all-round jock, but also a traditional, rules-loving person. I loved reading, and philosophy, and history, nature walks and thought rules were made to be broken... I thought he was unintelligent and shallow; he thought I was arrogant and full of myself. He was right.

No Hollywood movie taught us about what was truly needed to sustain real human love, that every human being needs to take and give second chances. In short, receive and forgive.

Jeremy: We had a lot of fun over the next 3 years. We had our first dance at Melvin and Andrea's Chindian wedding, our first time cooking together (I fried up frozen, slightly-burned pratha and eggs for her) at my place, our first fishing road trip with my father, and many other 'firsts'.

On 13 February 2018, a day before Valentine's Day, I asked Elsha to marry me in Villa Danieli, in a poolside Moroccan like cabana.

My palms were sweating and I blurted out "I'm so nervous!" She laughed. I went down on one knee and said, "Elsha, will you marry me?" She said "Yes." I was so relieved!

Elsha: Getting engaged and being in love was the easy part. The hardness of it all hit us like a train during our engagement. The most important thing about the engagement period, in the midst of the decisions on cake flavours and colour schemes and invitation designs, was that we were reminded anew how to trust God to show us what we needed to repent of, that life together is a school of faith and character, that we continue to see ourselves as God sees us - sinners in constant need of grace and mercy, and servants of one another.

Above that, we understood that human love alone is not enough to make a successful marriage, at least not if we wanted to also live in obedience to God and remain consistent to our confession of faith.

Jeremy: We had to learn to confront each other, be vulnerable and wise, rebuild trust, deal with past hurts, work through our own pride and insecurities, thrash out our views about God, community, family, money et cetera, a long list of what makes up life together, and build a shared vision of the future. No Hollywood movie taught us about what was truly needed to sustain fallible human love, that every human being needs to take and give second chances. In short, receive and forgive.

Talking about these things took a long time. During the period of engagement especially, we spent many hours dialoguing with pen and paper. There was even a time where we sat for 6 hours in a café, at an impasse on a number of practical issues.

We wanted us to work but both of us were not willing to compromise, and yet, we could not force our own positions without damaging the other.

Over months of intense discussions and seeking for what would please God ultimately, we learnt that the key to moving past these gridlocks was to have hearts willing to prefer the other above oneself, and to focus on service, rather than self. And in doing so, we could then focus outwardly on pleasing God, instead of ourselves.

Our love story is no fairytale, and we had to ask ourselves deep down if we were truly better together, and by whose measure?

Thankfully, God answered that for us by putting us through painful but necessary discipline, using our unique faults and personhood to challenge us and bring to light our own darkness in preparation for the years of tough commitment ahead.

Were we super happy all the time? No.

But were we confident of God's work in us, and seeing the fruits of it? Absolutely.

In light of God's grace and the beautiful transformation wrought in our hearts, then, it is with much hope, delight and thanksgiving that we finally marry today on 13 July 2019!

Our Lasting Hope

We are walking down this path together as Christians, with a Christian understanding of life under Jesus Christ, the God of the Bible.

Most couples marry in hope, be it hope for a better life together, hope to find fulfillment, hope for lasting happiness. Along the way, there are many reasons for couples to lose hope. What offered us a solid and lasting hope is the hope we found in Christ, instead of ourselves.

Matthew 12:18-21 records that God speaks of Jesus Christ in this way, which cannot be said of any of us:

"Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim justice to the nations.
¹⁹ He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
²⁰ a bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory;
²¹ and in his name the nations will put their hope."

This hope in Christ is not easily shaken by sickness or disease, evil done by ourselves or others, or our own successes and failures in this life.

This hope is for a just world, a world where evil-doers are saved from hurting themselves and others, and a righteous God will rule in justice and goodness.

And again in Romans 5:5-6, it is said, "Hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts… for while we were still weak (unable to save ourselves from ourselves), Christ died for the ungodly."

The ungodly, as we have learnt in our process of getting to the altar, refers to us, and our self-loving, self-worshiping selves. Each time we acted out of self-interest in our relationship, we were simply saying in our actions that we were un-godly, not like a good God who was willing to die for those who were ungodly.

Exploring these resources further helped us learn what it means to place our hopes fully in Christ and be saved.

Our church family also supported us throughout this journey. One of the ways they did that was by helping us to remember whose authority we were under – God's. We swore in as church members on 31 October 2010. Church membership set a pattern of precedence for our commitment to each other, a paradigm of solid commitment, rather than flimsy whims.

Church membership is modelled after the way the God of the Bible loves His people. In the way church membership requires sacrifice of self, so it is with the marriage relationship. This article by Michael Herrington describes it well.

Committing to daily and weekly service was extremely difficult to juggle with our studies, work, and family commitments. And yet, if we were to remain consistent with the hope we professed, we knew that we could not worship our weekends. Serving in our local church really taught us what gospel-centred ministry should look like.

All in all, being rooted in a loving church community truly gave us the right perspective as we prepared for the commitment of being lifelong servants to God, each other and the church!

Book Recommendations for Marriage Prep

We found the books below extremely helpful in challenging our paradigms of relationships, love, commitment and marriage. Hopefully, you will find them helpful too!

Should you require more food for thought, check out the Relationships Camp Series in 2010 at cerc.com.my/sermons/relationships.

Thank you again for celebrating today with us. Your presence means a lot to us! Tag us in any FB/Insta post with #JeremyWedsElsha so we know you're having a good time with us!

Check out our mini pre-wedding photoshoot below!