Growing up, Brenda Tan watched her parents fight every day. Often, she and her brother bore the brunt of their parents’ frustrations too.

“I was slapped, pinched, yelled at and criticised harshly almost every day,” Brenda told Salt&Light. “It was either that or both my parents were working and absent.”

In primary school, she was bullied by older students. As she grew up, she modelled the same violent ways of coping and eventually became a bully herself.

“I used to think that I was beaten and bullied because I was unlikeable and disgusting, that something was fundamentally wrong with me for me to attract all these punishments,” said Brenda, who was diagnosed with depression when she was 15.

She was only awarded attention and appreciation when she scored well in school. Then her achievements were “paraded” to relatives.

“My experience was that I had no value apart from what I achieved. So, I viewed relationships as transactional and I thought love meant any arrangement that mutually benefitted one another,” said Brenda, now 32 and a communications manager.

Meeting Jesus in her room

The lack of affirmation and attention in her life led her to look for romance, and it did not matter to Brenda if it was a man or woman.  

“I grew up experiencing attraction to both sexes. I thought love and romance is possible with anyone as long as we mutually benefit,” she said, adding that she was once attracted to a blond woman even as she was in a relationship with a man.

Sexually awakened from a young age of six, she would engage in masturbation and later, pornography, finding both genders appealing. 

When Brenda was 10 years old, however, she had a dramatic encounter with God.

After a particularly difficult night of witnessing more violence in her home, a suicidal Brenda told God to kill her, if He was real.

“Instead, Jesus showed up smiling at me. For the first time, I felt incredibly loved and could not stop tearing,” said Brenda, who began following Jesus thereafter.

However, coming from a family of a different religion, she did not start going to church until she was 13. But being in church did not solve her problems either: “I was searching for God but found that the Gospel that was preached didn’t address my experience of suffering, so I left church at 15,” she said.

Brenda backslided and started “living according to the world”: Singing in bands, drinking and engaging in masturbation and pornography. She also started dating a man and they were sexually intimate.

When she was 18, she left for studies in the UK. She continued singing and drinking, and became attracted to a girl. But God had other plans for her.

“When I was 20, went to Africa for three months to volunteer with an education-focused organisation,” she told Salt&Light. “There, I was moved by the worship of God by the local people who had nothing and suffered greatly.”

During that volunteer trip, she also realised that her boyfriend back in Singapore did not really care for her.

When Brenda turned 21, she had an encounter with God. “He spoke loudly to me about how long do I want to continue down this path of brokenness, and waste my life with this man (my ex). So broke up with him and chose God, because I realised I was already very broken and had nothing else to lose.”

She returned to church shortly before she graduated in 2014. Then “I came back to Singapore to serve my bond as a government scholar, and I started worshipping at Covenant Evangelical Free Church,” she said.

Back in Singapore, Brenda continued her worldly pursuits, singing in a band after work, and drinking. But walking closely with the Lord, she heard Him say to leave the band. It was later that she found out the members of the band were satanic.

“God told me to sing for Him,” she said. “I tried auditioning for my church’s worship team in CEFC as a backup singer, but failed horribly. I sang off-key and couldn’t find the right pitch – which is very unusual for me.”

Realising it was not the right time, Brenda decided not to sing for a while, but to spend time consecrating herself by fasting from performance. It was only two years later, in 2016, that she felt prompted to audition again. She was accepted and been on worship teams since then.

Bit by bit, God delivered Brenda from her addictions. She stopped using porn in her mid-20s, and the Lord opened her eyes to her drinking issue.

One Christmas party, Brenda brought a pack of Tiger Radler (beer mixed with fruit juice). This drew a bad reaction from her cell group leader, who was struggling with alcoholism.

Brenda remembered: “That triggered a lot of open conversations, and I realised I had a problem and prayed for deliverance.

“One day at work, as I opened a small bottle to drink, the Lord told me: ‘I will answer your prayer and take away your compulsion to drink from now on.’

“It felt like chains falling off me.”

She started attending Full Gospel Business Fellowship, and “they heard my voice and asked me to lead worship for their events.”

It was at an FGB camp that Brenda met Joseph.

A vision of her future groom 

In 2016, Brenda, then 24, was scheduled to lead worship at a Christian discipleship camp.

The day before the camp started, she was told by the organisers that they were flying someone in from the United Kingdom to lead worship with her.

Joseph (in plaid shirt) was the worship director at Cardiff International Church in the UK.

That person turned out to be Joseph Loh, who was doing his degree in aircraft maintenance in Wales but had been flown in because the camp organiser felt his presence was important to the camp.

Brenda recalled: “When I first met him, I felt that he was a really good man who loves Jesus. He was so good with the guitar and vocals, to the point that I jokingly suggested to him to take all the worship leading sessions so that I can relax.”

Joseph and Brenda (behind) leading worship on another occasion.

During an evening prayer session on the first day, Brenda had a vision.

She saw herself walking up to the marriage altar, where a groom was waiting for her.

“I absolutely thought the groom was going to be Jesus because I felt that I had to remain single and celibate now that I was a follower of Christ,” said Brenda, adding that at that time she was interested in a girl she knew from university in the UK.

But in her vision, when she turned to look at the groom, she realised it was Joseph.

“At first, I thought perhaps it’s because I just saw him and led worship with him, so I told God I must be imagining things,” said Brenda.

Joseph leading worship with his musical talents.

Little did she know that Joseph himself had heard from God as well. On his flight from the UK to Singapore, the Lord had told him that he was going to meet his future wife.

“When I first met Brenda, I felt in my spirit that she had a beautiful heart. But I was also intimidated by her confidence, smartness and frankness,” said Joseph, now 40.

They seemed a highly unlikely match. The type of girls that he was interested in and had pursued up to that point were godly Christian girls with blue eyes and blond hair.

Sexually groomed during teenage years

When Joseph was 17, his best friend introduced him to a male tutor. All the teenager wanted from his tutor was friendship and access to his computer to play games, but the tutor offered him “more”.

“As he gave me money, presents and his laptop, I allowed him to touch me for many years. It went from touching me to touching my genitals and then masturbating together,” Joseph told Salt&Light candidly.

This sexual awakening led to a pornography addiction, which Joseph kept under wraps. He led a double life and continued going to church and serving God on Sunday.

His addiction was so strong, he carried his porn collection with him to the UK when he went there for studies.

There, Joseph suffered panic and anxiety attacks for a month. He also fell sick with a fever but could not get an appointment to see the doctor. Terrified, he cried out to all the gods and asked whoever was real to help him.

Just like He did for Brenda, Jesus stepped into the room where Joseph was, and peace filled the room.

Like Brenda, Joseph asked Jesus to kill him, but Jesus did not. Instead, Joseph found new life in the Lord and His word.

“I didn’t have time to go back to porn because I became engrossed in reading the Bible and in church,” he said.

Brenda did not know of Joseph’s past and she felt like brushing away the unusual vision she received. However, she lingered over it, feeling the Lord ask her to seek Him more about it.

“So, I prayed that if it is truly Joseph that He wants me to marry, He needs to show me some concrete signs,” said Brenda.

The discipleship camp where Joseph (second from left) and Brenda (at the back, in short hair) first met in 2016.

One of the signs that she asked was for God to wake her up for the morning walk with everyone the next day. She knew she was a heavy and late sleeper, and she did not bother setting the alarm.

“For the whole night, I dreamt of Jacob wrestling with God. I woke up tired, but without any help, at 5am. I thought I must have missed the walk as I naturally wake up around 9 or 10am,” said Brenda.

That day, she was the first to arrive for the walk.

Many other signs that she requested from God were also fulfilled in the years to come.

“I still wasn’t convinced it would work or how it could happen, because of where I was. So, I ignored the several, very clear signs that I was given,” said Brenda.

Though Joseph also felt that God was pointing Brenda out to him, he deliberately avoided her as she did not fit his “type” and seemed too intimidating.

After the camp, Joseph flew back to the UK and then returned to his home in Malaysia for a while.

Crossing paths again 

A year later, in 2017, Brenda received another vision from God. At the time, she had been worshipping at Covenant Evangelical Free Church for about three years.

In the vision, she saw a mental image of an auditorium that she had been to before while attending an event on Christian apologetics.

“I showed up there one day on Sunday and saw Joseph leading worship and found out it was a church,” said Brenda.

The church was called Embrace Church, an international congregation under City Missions Church. Brenda joined the church shortly after, knowing that God had led her there.

She served in Embrace Church’s worship team. Joseph was the worship director of the team. They slowly became friends in church, but theirs was not a smooth, easy relationship.

“We clashed a lot because I felt that Joseph wasn’t directional enough and that he communicated poorly, so I couldn’t get a sense of what he truly wanted or how God was leading him. When I went up to him to clarify things, he felt I was challenging his leadership,” said Brenda, whose assertiveness often rubbed the meek Joseph in the wrong way.

Brenda with her church friends and leaders at Joseph’s 33rd birthday party in 2017.

Meanwhile, Joseph persisted in desiring other girls that fit his own criteria better and prayed for many signs from God on which one to choose.

All the signs pointed to Brenda.

One sign Joseph asked of God was for his chosen spouse to be with him on top of a particular hill in Mongolia. He had felt called to Mongolia for missions and was struck by the incredible beauty of the landscape from the top of that hill.

Years ago while in Mongolia, Joseph talked to God about his desire for his future spouse to be on this mountain with him one day.

Eventually, Brenda did end up going on a group mission trip to Mongolia with Joseph but the itinerary did not involve going to that region of Mongolia – Marun.

“God changed all the plans of the trip as it was a national holiday in Mongolia, so the local pastor chose to bring us to Marun and we stopped at the very same hill,” said Joseph.

Brenda and Joseph with the hill in the background in Mongolia.

Joseph knew then, without a doubt, who God’s choice was for him. Though he admittedly was not attracted to Brenda at all, he decided to obey God because he had determined to let God decide who his spouse would be.

Just like Joseph, Brenda had asked God to choose for her, as the relationships she had pursued on her own previously never ended well.

Having the most “unromantic” talk about dating each other

In 2018, Joseph worked up the courage to talk to Brenda about his intention to date her.

He told her God had spoken clearly to him about her being God’s choice for him, and he asked what she thought. She replied that, similarly, God had spoken to her about him.

Then, a silence fell between them.

They knew they each came with a lot of baggage.

“I told Joseph honestly that I wasn’t attracted to him, that I even disliked him a lot because of how he treated me in the worship team – he would treat me worse than the others because he wanted to avoid me,” said Brenda.

Brenda and Joseph leading worship during a mission trip in Russia.

However, she also told him that she, like him, wanted to obey God.

“It was probably the most unromantic conversation ever. We both couldn’t deny our compatibility in terms of gifting and calling to missions, and our strengths and weaknesses. But physically, we just weren’t drawn to each other,” she added.

It was a short conversation as both of them had a prayer meeting to head to after, but both of them agreed to date each other henceforth out of obedience.

Most of their dates involved talking a lot, talking through their issues. Both of them like to eat and to be amidst nature, so those conversations took place either over meals or during  walks at the beach.

Joseph and Brenda in Siberia, Russia for missions.

“Dating without having attraction is actually incredibly freeing. We weren’t trying to impress each other at all, so we could be very honest with each other,” Brenda told Salt&Light.

Both of them brought to God what they felt would not work in the relationship.

“I told God that Brenda didn’t like children, but I love them and desire to have children after marriage. But all Jesus said was to trust Him,” said Joseph.

“We both doubted a lot along the way, but we also had enough faith by then to know that God always gives us the best,” said Brenda.

It helped that their pastor and ministry leaders had urged them for a long time to pray about coming together and were supportive of their union.

Thus, when Joseph proposed to Brenda on stage in church in February 2019, the whole church was in on the surprise.

Joseph proposed during a church service. They had made Brenda the emcee for the service and surprised her while she was giving the announcements.

They were married in October that same year, and went to the Maldives for their honeymoon thereafter.

Joseph and Brenda (with their pastor) at their wedding ceremony.

The couple on their honeymoon in the Maldives.

“Life after marriage was great as we quickly discovered that we had more in common than we thought we had. As we already had fought through so much before marriage and established a foundation of honest communication, we had that security we needed to fully express our love for other in terms of sexual intimacy,” said Brenda.

“I mean, when you have no attraction, you got to really work at it,” she said in good humour.

Love and redemption

Over time, though, physical attraction began to increase between them as they chose to love each other even in the midst of trials.

They also began to see how God knew each of them better than they knew themselves.

Brenda’s love for children only really showed itself after she had her first child, when she astounded Joseph with her patience and love for their children.

Daniela at one, in Brenda’s arms.

“I realised I was against having children because I felt I couldn’t be a good mother because of my upbringing – not because I didn’t love them. I love children so much I couldn’t bear to be a bad mother.

“God gave me the assurance I needed to have children and answered Joseph’s prayer for children,” Brenda said to Salt&Light.

The couple now have three children and the family now worships at 3:16 church.

“God’s ways are truly higher than ours; we couldn’t tell where God going with this relationship until later on,” she added.

“Compared to some other people we considered dating, this is truly the best outcome and we could not be more thankful.”

Life after marriage continued to be a rollercoaster ride for Joseph and Brenda as God continued to refine them individually, as a couple and as parents. They faced such conflict as parents that Brenda asked for a divorce. Read here for their unvarnished story on life post-marriage.

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