Dr Tan Lai Yong and wife Lay Chin’s book celebrates a “love that will not freeze”
Clarissa Choo // March 5, 2021, 1:09 am
Lai Yong and Lay Chin on their engagement day. Photos courtesy of Dr Tan Lai Yong.
When I asked Dr Tan Lai Yong why he had chosen to write his new book, Encountering Covid, Embracing Covenant, Engaging Community, to celebrate 30 years of marriage with his wife, Lay Chin, he looked almost shy as he answered me.
“To answer that, we can start at the engagement.”
It was 1989. She was studying in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a graduate student. He was here in Singapore, working hard as a doctor.
Long before the time of emails and easy calls on the handphone, they wrote each other letters every day to weather the long-distance relationship.
“Postage was only 35 cents! Do you know how expensive a phone call was then?” said Dr Tan.
“This lake does not freeze because it’s very deep. So, we got engaged here, pledging a love that will not freeze.”
He wanted to fly to the US to propose to her, but airplane tickets were exorbitant at the time and were unaffordable for the young doctor.
“So, I became a DHL courier, because they will pay for half of your flight ticket!”
Observing my bemused expression, he explained the courier arrangement: “You don’t get to decide where you land, because you have to go wherever the package goes. So, I flew with only one bag, because that’s all you were allowed. No check-in luggage. And I took the overnight bus to her.”
He took Lay Chin to Crater Lake in Oregon, where he asked her to be his wife.
Crater Lake, where Lai Yong proposed to Lay Chin.
“It’s a volcanic lake,” he said, “and in the winter, everything freezes over because it’s so cold. But this lake does not freeze, because it’s very deep and stores up sufficient warmth. So, we got engaged by this lake, pledging a love that will not freeze.”
They would go on to get married with Proverbs 30:8-9 as their now-famously unusual wedding verse: “Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.” (ESV)
The passage was chosen to pledge dependence on God’s provision, knowing that He will be faithful to provide what is needed, Dr Tan explained.
“We were thinking and praying: What does our last lap of life look like? Who are we to serve?”
Fast-forward 30 years, and it is clear that their love is just as deep, if not deepened and well-seasoned even more, by time and age.
During a video interview with Salt&Light on the new book, Dr Tan subconsciously tucked his feet behind the chair legs during filming, and his wife gestured gently to correct his posture for the camera. He quickly obliged, with a cheeky smile.
Later on, she made it a point to keep a sandwich for him, while he busied himself talking to a crew member.
It is evident that God has sown faithfulness and fruitfulness in this marriage.
As much as the contents of this book celebrate God’s covenant through poignant anecdotes and vivid photographs taken by the couple on their morning walks together, it is also an affirmation of God’s faithfulness in their 30-year marriage.
God’s tangible love
Writing a book had not been the couple’s first choice when they considered how to celebrate their 30th anniversary.
Dr Tan revealed that he had originally planned a three-month long cruise to various countries.
Of course, those travel plans came to a grinding halt when Covid-19 struck.
The book was planned as a celebration project shared by husband and wife.
“Covid-19 was really a storm,” Dr Tan asserted.
During the video interview, he had made that statement in relation to his book, and I had thought that he was referring to the damaging effects of Covid-19 in general, revealing and reminding us of our deep need for God in repentance.
Now, I can see that the statement is also deeply personal: Covid-19 is a storm that has altered Dr Tan’s own plans and ideas of life.
“I turn 60 this year. Lay Chin and I are at the last stage of life, and we were thinking and praying: What does our last lap of life look like? Who are we to serve?
“We had always thought that it would be to serve foreign communities. But Covid-19 put that all on hold. So, when our plans got upset, what do we have to fall back on? We fall back on God’s covenant, which directs us to community.”
So, the book was planned as a celebration project shared by husband and wife.
Encountering Covid, Embracing Covenant, Engaging Community is an encouragement to “hold fast to what is good” in the most challenging of times. Photo by Tan Huey Ying.
It is a book to celebrate the faithfulness of God in their marriage and also in all of their life through the different challenges and trials.
With literally nowhere to go beyond our borders, Dr Tan and Lay Chin started walking together every day and would take many photos with their phones during these long, daily walks along East Coast. Those vibrant, perspective-changing photos fill the pages of this new book and bear testament to a sweet partnership of husband and wife, sustained by God’s grace and worthy of celebration.
The celebration of a God-centred marriage becomes a celebration of God Himself.
Reflecting on his wedding three decades ago, Dr Tan mused: “Through the good and tough times of Covid, our wedding verse has remained true. And not just true, but very, very affirming.”
In such sobering, uncertain times, God’s provision remains constant.
This new book exhorts us all to contemplate and remember God’s covenantal faithfulness and consider community in the light of that – what it means to extend hospitality, compassion and love, and practising love and truth in the process.
The celebration of a God-centred marriage becomes a celebration of God Himself.
As a young adult myself, to witness 30 years of marriage seasoned by time and sustained by the goodness of God is quite a surreal experience. Thirty years is quite unimaginable to my 22-year-old self.
But I find that it also lends some tangibility to the love of God. Approaching this book with the context of Dr Tan and Lay Chin’s hard-won relationship, I find myself celebrating alongside them as I reconsider the goodness of our God.
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