It began with a break-up.

When Clovis Tan, 26, broke up with his then girlfriend in 2015, his church prayer mate Elina Er, 22, heard God’s soft, clear voice saying: “Just be there for him.”

So she acquiesced and was present whenever Clovis needed a listening ear. Over time, she noticed that whenever he was sad, her heart would also feel the ache. Was she falling for him?

 CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR COPY OF Salt&Light: Inspirational Stories of Faith in Love

Thus began Clovis and Elina’s remarkable love story that involved unrequited attraction, separation, tearful prayers, prophetic dreams and, ultimately, the clarity of God’s hand in a journey culminating in marriage.

When Clovis and Elina finally walked down the aisle in October 2018 – in a wedding pulled together in just three weeks, no less – they felt compelled to share their testimony with the 400 guests present.

“When we said ‘I do’, it was not just to each other but also ‘I do’ to God, trusting Him to ordain the best for us,” says Clovis, now 34.

Their extraordinary courtship and wedding is featured in newly released book, Salt&Light: Inspirational Stories of Faith in Love, now available for pre-order in time for Christmas.

We asked Clovis and Elina to give readers a peek behind the scenes since their story first ran on Salt&Light in March 2023. 

When you read your story in Salt&Light, did anything surprise you in seeing your story mapped out in this way?

It felt like puzzle pieces coming together. All the waiting and uncertainties, especially prior to our marriage, were not in vain. God was building, and continues to build, our faith and trust in Him, bringing us to a place of full surrender.

God truly knows us more than we know ourselves, and if the very hairs on our head are important to Him, what more our marriage life.

Don’t get us wrong, God doesn’t force us to do things or marry someone randomly, but we challenge you to yield your desires to Him and we pray the “free will” He so liberally and graciously bestows on us would be intentionally aligned to His will for us – to make His will, our will. Marriages are precious to the Lord.

How has your marriage been since that unusual courtship?

It has been enjoyable and fruitful to serve together as a couple.

We believe that most ministry leaders and volunteers would understand how much time and capacity are required of us to serve, on top of juggling family and a day job.

But building a ministry together as a couple makes everything so much more enjoyable and fruitful.

We not only take care of our children (twin daughters), we also take care of our spiritual children (ministry, mentees and the people who we serve alongside with).

We are strong advocates of serving alongside your other half. Not only would you be able to create avenues for spiritual partnerships, you can actually call out each other’s destiny in the process.

We get to spend time together while serving and this helps build our marriage as we allow Jesus to be at the centre of whatever we do.

In the lead-up to your wedding, God revealed a vision of you serving in a music ministry together. How has that panned out?

We believe that the Lord had truly planned everything ahead of us. We complement each other and lead in different areas in our worship and music ministry as our strengths are different.

It is also such a blessing that we both have similar interests and desires in the area of worship, music and songwriting.

Together with The Encounter (TE), we planned for and led two music workshops and outreaches to Cambodia where we ministered to and empowered local musicians/songwriters to be forerunners in their land over a span of two years in 2023 to 2024.

Locally, we also partnered Cornerstone Community Church (Tamil) to organise a songwriting workshop a few months ago and we are delighted to share that three new Tamil songs were birthed from it.

Building these spiritual houses of worship and igniting the hearts of these community leaders reminded us that it really only takes a spark to get a fire going.

What do you hope comes out of your music ministry?

We released our third EP, “Till Every Nation Comes Home”, in January 2024 in conjunction with TE’s anniversary, and a music single, “Welcome Home, Again”, on Good Friday.

We will continue writing songs to stir the hearts of Christians, prodigals and pre-believers and pray that, through our ministry, new anthems of praise will continue to be released. We will soon be releasing a new single, “Encounter Your Love”, in December 2024. This would be our 26th original song release since 2020.

Our hearts’ desire is to see every tribe and tongue encounter God through worship.

This is an ongoing goal and we need to be faithful and follow the Lord’s instructions when it comes to writing and producing new songs, creating spaces of worship and raising more next-gen leaders who would do the same in the nations and in our land.

One of the unique projects we embarked on since 2022 was to release a song in the languages of our land during Singapore’s National Day. Three singles have been translated and released in Bahasa Melayu, Mandarin and Tamil: “Praise You In The Storm”, “Adore” and “Till Every Nation Comes Home”.

There must be more and we can’t wait to see what the Lord will do through us and the ministry He has entrusted us with. We now have about 26 volunteers (TEFam) from different churches and denominations with the same hunger and vision.

What has the response been to your Salt&Light story? Why do you think it resonated with people?

We have friends, acquaintances, colleagues and even random people we do not know slide into our DMs or hit us up after events we were involved in (worship nights and so forth) to seek our opinion on matters regarding waiting for the right one and marriage.

We usually ended up praying with them, but I think our role really is to steward their faith and situation, and to encourage them to lean in closer to the Lord.

I expect there are some who feel that this whole “God-ordained and arranged marriage” is not for them – and that is totally fine! The Lord knows what is best for us and what we can or cannot handle. Everyone’s story is just as unique and different.

But we think in a world so clogged up with hatred, anger and hurt, these testimonies are a breath of hope and fresh air.

Our marriage story may seem like a scene from a Korean drama, but when you completely lay your desires aside and trust in the Lord, this can also be your portion.

Only if we are truly willing.

It’s not easy or straightforward but we just have to simply trust and obey, every step of the way.

Read Clovis and Elina’s extraordinary love story in newly released book, “Salt&Light: Inspirational Stories of Faith in Love”, now open for pre-orders. Click here to place order before Dec 10 for delivery by Christmas.