Jeshua Soh and Nicole Ler

Married 9 May 2026 · Singapore

Jeshua Soh (born November 1995) and Nicole Ler (born November 1996) are a Singaporean couple who first crossed paths as teenagers in the youth group of Hope Singapore in 2010, and married on 9 May 2026. A union their friends describe as surprising but also a "match made in heaven," their story spans 17 years, a round-the-world trip, a 500km walking fundraiser, way more-than-normal exposure to Myanmar, and approximately one thousand games of Spades.

Both are members of Hope Singapore, a church which has been central to each of their lives since childhood (Jeshua from birth, Nicole from secondary school), and both credit their faith and the community around them as the defining force shaping their characters and, eventually, their union.

1. Nicole Ler

1.1 Early Life & Family

Nicole Ler was born in November 1996 to Ler Kwok Peng, a career regular with the Republic of Singapore Navy, and Crystal Lee Su Yin, who stepped back from her career after Nicole's birth before later working part-time in retail. Her immediate family did not have a Christian background during her early childhood, although Nicole has six Christian aunts and uncles. But this would change over time — Nicole was the first in her immediate family to accept Christ, followed shortly afterwards by her brother Lyon. Crystal gave her life to the Lord in 2025.

Water was Nicole's natural element from the very beginning. She began swimming at around five years old at the pool of Singapore Polytechnic, taught by an instructor known as Uncle David, and was rewarded afterwards with digestive biscuits. This early affinity for the water never left her. Her self-declared favourite animal is the whale.

As a young girl Nicole was, by her own testimony, a self-confessed tomboy. She abandoned ballet (Grade 1 certified) in favour of Wushu in primary school, and had many close friends who were boys. She also claims to have been a thoroughly well-behaved and "guai" child growing up. Documentary evidence from the family archives, however, suggests the picture is more complicated: at the age of two, she bit her younger brother Lyon on the head for failing to move aside while she was attempting to help fold his mattress.

Her early encounters with faith came through learning Christian songs and Bible stories at True Way Presbyterian Kindergarten — the very same building where she will be married on 9 May 2026. When enrolling for primary school, her parents applied for a place at Fairfield Methodist Primary School. With no direct affiliation to the school and only four places remaining, the odds were long. Her Christian aunt Susan encouraged the young Nicole to pray, and she eventually somehow secured a place. She would later describe this as one of the earliest moments when it felt as though something larger was at work in her life.

1.2 School Years

Nicole entered Fairfield Methodist Primary School, where she met Jodi in Primary 4. The two acted in a school play together, one of Nicole's earliest creative exploits, and remained close for the next two decades. Jodi is one of Nicole's bridesmaids and will be accompanying her to the June 2026 celebration in Yangon, marking twenty years of friendship.

After primary school, Nicole enrolled at Crescent Girls' Secondary School. True to form, she joined the Canoeing CCA. In a defining piece of reconnaissance, she stalked her seniors, Charmaine and Clara on Facebook and found out they had a church friend named Buan Hua who shares the same birthday.

It was through a chance encounter with Buan Hua in the school canteen one fateful day that Nicole attended a Hope Singapore youth service on 22 May 2010, in Secondary 2, and gave her life to the Lord. She joined Hope Singapore's Central youth group and found herself in the same lifegroup as one Jeshua Soh. At the time, she found him "a little difficult to hold a conversation with" and noted that he seemed to be "always trying to convince people of things, such as the fact that his Nokia brick phone was superior to a smart phone." One of her earliest memories of him involves tying water balloons and crushing paper balls at a lifegroup camp for games. She did not consider him a romantic prospect then. (Though she would eventually marry him.)

Nicole's secondary school years were marked by academic diligence balanced with genuine creative warmth. She regularly wrote cards for friends and family, including Jeshua (and he to her), a habit that speaks to a thoughtfulness she has carried throughout her life.

For Junior College, Nicole enrolled at Anglo-Chinese Junior College (Arts stream), reading Geography, Economics, Literature and Mathematics. She took on the Lifeguard CCA and served as its President. Her competition event required 12.5 metres of underwater swimming after a 50-metre freestyle swim, a test that pushed her well past what she thought her body could do and taught her something durable about resilience. Meanwhile, Jeshua had departed Hwa Chong Institution for Ngee Ann Polytechnic's Film, Sound and Video course. Both stayed in the Central group to lead their juniors, and a fellow group leader, Chan Xiang Yi, began what would become a years-long campaign of "shipping" them together. Nicole remained entirely unconvinced.

Nicole excelled in the A-level examinations, earning a bond-free scholarship sponsored by Perennial Holdings. Right after Junior College, she participated in her first short-term mission trip to Isabela, Philippines. At a worship session that extended far beyond its scheduled time, the group emerged to find that a full hour had passed without any of them noticing — God's presence was felt tangibly by all who were there.

1.3 University & Career

Nicole enrolled at the National University of Singapore to read Real Estate. She chose it over Geography (which she liked) and Psychology (which would require a master's degree to practise) because it encompassed the geography topics on urban planning and population that she found interesting while offering more direct career paths. NUS is now ranked among the world's top ten universities.

University life brought Nicole three of her most enduring friendships: Zicen (a Real Estate course mate), and Janelle and Shani from her Hope NUS lifegroup, affectionately known collectively as the NUNs. All three are her bridesmaids. Fond memories include studying at the Engineering benches after classes (also known as "HQ") and photographing buildings around Singapore for course projects. Nicole made the Dean's List twice, in 2018 and 2019, while simultaneously leading a lifegroup (D2) in her final year. She also completed an exchange semester at Peking University in 2017 alongside Zicen, and there met some of the warmest, most welcoming people whom she fondly terms her "family away from family."

Her internships traced an arc through the property industry: J Rental Centre (summer 2016, more on which below), Perennial Holdings (leasing, late 2016), and Ascendas Singbridge (hospitality investment analyst, 2018). After graduating, she joined Perennial full-time, rotating through the operations, marketing and communications, and leasing departments at Capitol Singapore and CHIJMES. In 2021 she moved to investments, asset and development management, becoming the company's specialist in healthcare real estate. Among the projects she contributed to was Singapore's first private assisted living development — a $260 million project that launched in 2026 — some years after her involvement. In 2023, she left Perennial and joined UOL Group in asset management, where she continues to work.

The summer 2016 internship at Jeshua's J Rental Centre deserves a specific note. Nicole was involved with the expansion to include commercial spaces and clothes. During her stint, she assisted with a photoshoot for bridal gowns, tying many corsets and declining, with characteristic foresight, to try on a wedding dress herself. She wanted her husband to be the first to see her in one. She was, it would emerge, prepared to wait approximately nine years for this principle to bear fruit, albeit to the same photographer that had asked her to try one on during her internship.

Today, Nicole serves as a Manager in the Asset Management team at UOL Group, one of Singapore's leading property companies. Her work spans the optimisation of the group's commercial properties, with a focus on Singapore assets.

1.4 Faith & Community

Nicole's faith journey unfolded gradually, marked by noticing God's fingerprints in her life and the loving community she found in her secondary school days. After accepting Christ in May 2010, she went on to serve faithfully through youth ministry, lead a lifegroup during her NUS days and co-lead a group while serving in West Centre's Clementi Zone.

Nicole has been a faithful volunteer at Hopekids since her secondary school days. She has a deep love for children and looks forward to having some of her own one day. Over the years she has helped process transfers from the tertiary group to the adult congregation, served as an admin, at the information counter, in the China workers' ministry and continues today as a vocalist and children's preacher in West Centre. This serving heart and the selfless, steady consistency with which she shows up for others was, as Jeshua has noted, among the key reasons he took a liking to her.

Church life also brought her back into regular contact with Jeshua through shared ministry contexts. After the downtown core group disbanded in 2021, members were encouraged to find new lifegroups, and Nicole joined the Clementi Zone shortly after Jeshua did. She emphatically denies this had anything to do with him. Across their 17 years at Hope Singapore, the couple has found themselves in at least four different lifegroups together — including Nicole's very first and their current one. God, it would appear, has his own way of orchestrating things, and never shortchanges his faithful children.

---

2. Jeshua Soh

2.1 Early Life & Family

Jeshua Soh was born in November 1995 to Soh Chin Heng and Nar Lay Choo, both among the early members of Hope Singapore. His father is a former civil servant; his mother a biology teacher who took several years away from teaching after Jeshua's birth. He has one younger brother, Ethan. One month after his birth, he was cast, without being consulted, as the Baby Jesus in a Hope Singapore Christmas production. The church was then only a fraction of its current size, with fewer than a dozen children in the kids' service.

He was a curious child, the sort who asked "why" questions relentlessly and to the apparent exasperation of his father. At age five, during a family trip to Malaysia, his curiosity nearly killed him when he hung from the wrong side of an escalator handrail going up to the second floor. His father sprinted up, shoved several bystanders aside, and hauled him to safety over the handrails. This is generally taken as evidence of either extraordinary paternal reflexes or providential intervention, or both.

From his primary school years, Jeshua demonstrated an unmistakable entrepreneurial streak: he traded country erasers among classmates and sold beaded jewellery at church camps. He was in the chess club, not particularly athletic owing to asthma, but strong in mathematics, eventually joining Olympiad classes and entering competitions.

At nine, Jeshua was encouraged by then-pastor Hong Teck of Hope Singapore's children's ministry: his habit of fiddling with the lights led to an assignment operating the overhead projector and later the sound system at the church's first permanent venue in Nexus Auditorium, Cuppage Plaza. This was the beginning of a media ministry that would shape his education, career and worldview for the next three decades.

2.2 Hwa Chong Institution

At Primary 6, Jeshua was offered a place via the Direct School Admission exercise at Hwa Chong Institution, despite Mandarin being his worst subject. He spent the better part of a year studying almost nothing else, achieving an A in the PSLE Chinese paper. "That still amazes many people today," he has noted.

At Hwa Chong, he fought his way into the Mediatech Club (initially rejected; admitted on appeal with the help of a senior) and accumulated hundreds of volunteer hours supporting school events, eventually serving as Vice Video Head in his upper secondary years. In parallel, he served in the youth ministry's video team at Hope Singapore, a ministry he continues to this day.

In Year 4 of Hwa Chong's six-year integrated programme, Jeshua made the decision that would define his career: he chose to leave and enrol in Ngee Ann Polytechnic's Film, Sound and Video (FSV) course. His father assumed the school would refuse the request, which it did. What he had not accounted for was Jeshua's subsequent discovery of the Direct Admissions Exercise, which allowed applicants with portfolios to bypass the O-level requirement entirely. Jeshua attended his interview, was discouraged by the interviewer (Mr Leonard Yip), sat in on several classes by arrangement with then-director Mr Michael Kam, and applied anyway. He was accepted.

"This opportunity isn't one to present itself again," he has said. "I trusted God to open or close this door accordingly."

2.3 Ngee Ann Polytechnic, JRC & Startupmedia

Jeshua describes his three years at Ngee Ann Polytechnic's Film, Sound and Video programme as "some of the most vibrant and exhilarating" of his life. He received a full scholarship from the polytechnic. He went overseas six times in three years (Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, China, Myanmar, Australia), audited at least twenty modules at NUS alongside his polytechnic studies, and continued attending lectures at Hwa Chong's junior college for subjects whose timetables happened to align. He interned at Channel NewsAsia's transmedia team, helping upload the first videos to what is now CNA Insider, and was later invited back for a two-month stint on CNA's current affairs team during Singapore's SG50 celebrations.

In his final semester, Jeshua founded J Rental Centre (JRC), beginning as a Facebook page listing his own camera equipment, then evolving into a peer-to-peer rental marketplace. Early partners Kevin Ng and Jia Jun helped build the platform. The website was built in two weeks with a Google Sheets backend. JRC eventually expanded to include creative spaces and event logistics, built a team of part-timers and a network of collection points across Singapore, and formally closed in 2025 after a decade of operation.

In parallel, Jeshua built Startupmedia, pivoting his media production clients toward the startup ecosystem and embedding himself in accelerators, pitch events and hackathons. He also freelanced as a wedding and commercial videographer, shooting more than fifty weddings while still a student.

2.4 Myanmar & Crossworks

The maiden trip to Myanmar in 2013, a polytechnic assignment led by a Burmese lecturer at a time when the country had just opened up after five decades of isolation, planted something in Jeshua that would take years to fully emerge. A second trip followed with Gideon Ng (the wedding's exhortation speaker) and Xiangyi, among others. You can read more about what drew him to Myanmar in his own words: Why Myanmar?^[9]

In 2018, facing the familiar SME challenge of staff turnover and retraining costs, Jeshua posted on several Myanmar Facebook groups and was overwhelmed by the quality of applicants. He incorporated Crossworks, hired an initial team of three, and began making regular trips to Yangon, at one point purchasing 22 tickets for under S$950 during a Jetstar sale. Within six months, the team working for other companies through Crossworks' shared office exceeded his own headcount, and he found himself in the HR-as-a-Service business almost by accident. A profile by Top Tier Startups describes the company's mission as "stopping Myanmar's brain drain by providing its best and brightest with access to international remote work opportunities."^[4]

Alongside this, Jeshua launched HEAR Myanmar, a Facebook video channel documenting the people, places, culture and food of every state and region. Over 120 bite-sized documentary films accumulated more than 140,000 followers before the channel was paused with the onset of the pandemic. In 2019, he was invited to speak at TEDxYouth Ngee Ann Polytechnic, his talk titled We're All In The Same Boat.^[1] He was also featured in Zaobao for his work connecting Singapore and Myanmar.^[5]

Today, Crossworks has grown to over 140 remote employees supporting more than 60 companies. The company will mark its eighth anniversary in September 2026. Jeshua has hosted dozens of Singaporeans in Myanmar and continues to advocate for a more nuanced understanding of the country on his LinkedIn and via his Substack newsletter.

2.5 Pandemic, the World & Coming Home

In early 2020, Jeshua was in China two weeks before the WHO declared a global emergency, continued onward to Europe and Israel (narrowly escaping Israel's lockdown), and found himself in Myanmar during Singapore's circuit breaker. He chose to extend his visa and continue producing HEAR Myanmar content and running small fundraisers, until a team member contracted COVID-19 and the entire team, including Jeshua, was quarantined for a month in what he describes as a half-renovated boarding school hastily repurposed as a government facility, with no mattresses, fans, or windows.

He was hired as Head of Video at Nas Daily during the quarantine, to remotely produce a series of social videos owing to the travel restrictions, a role at the intersection of his experience in filmmaking and remote hiring.

When the 2020 Myanmar elections and pandemic created further travel complications, he decided to take what he imagined would be a short sabbatical in Africa starting in November 2020. He brought along a 22L backpack and a foldable bicycle from Taobao, and was hosted by Pastor Henry's family of Hope Johannesburg during his time in South Africa. When his bus to Botswana was cancelled and all trains were suspended owing to the pandemic, the bicycle was put to good use: Jeshua cycled from Johannesburg to Zimbabwe (approximately 600km), pitching a tent along the way where guesthouses were not available and even encountering a pair of wild elephants.

The Straits Times later covered his pandemic travels across 55 countries.^[6] This was the beginning of a 2.5-year journey across 50+ countries, interrupted by the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar. Highlights along the way included sleeping next to the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt for US$10 a night, standing on the mirror-like expanse of Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni, discovering the Shangri-La of Hunza Valley in Pakistan, and couch-surfing his way across the United States.

In June 2021, Jeshua joined Decacorn Capital as an Associate and was promoted to Principal, exploring venture capital and disruptive technology investment with no formal finance background. The connection came through The FinLab, a longstanding Startupmedia client since 2016, who described what they were looking for as someone "a little out of the box."

The decision to come home was made in March 2023, after a shooting incident on a peaceful Sunday afternoon at Lake Merritt, Oakland, California. He has since reflected: "As much as we can try to calculate and quantify risk, one could live a 'risky' life and be protected, as much as one could live a 'safe' life and be caught in the most unexpected of situations." He submitted his resignation from Decacorn and planned his return to Singapore. He was also interviewed on Insight Myanmar Podcast (Ep. 333): Against the Wind about his experiences during this period.^[7]

Back in Singapore, Jeshua launched Common Cents, a newsletter on startups, investing and life, and organised notable fundraising efforts: a 2,000km Cycle for Hope from Singapore to Bangkok in 2024 raising over S$70,000 for the Mae Tao Clinic (covered by the Borneo Bulletin^[3] and Straits Times^[6]), followed by a 500km Walk for Hope from Bangkok to Mae Sot in 2025, which successfully hit its S$150,000 target.^[8] Nicole walked the first two days of the journey alongside Jeshua.

Within an hour of arriving at the Mae Tao Clinic at the conclusion of the walk, the largest earthquake in over a century struck central Myanmar. Jeshua immediately flew into Yangon to coordinate relief and recovery efforts, launching the Helping Hearts Fund while still on the ground. The Crossworks community, built on the principle of keeping Myanmar's best and brightest at home, proved its value: over 50 volunteers were mobilised, working alongside more than a dozen local and international aid organisations to purchase and deliver three truckloads of essential goods and medication, transport volunteers, and launch a clean-up effort around Mandalay and Amarapura.

Recognising that long-term needs were as important as immediate relief, Jeshua established the Tan Siew Keng Scholarship, named after his late paternal grandmother whom he never met, as she passed before he was born, but whose commitment to education his father had always spoken of. The scholarship supports students in financial need at Myanmar Institute of Theology's Liberal Arts Programme, ensuring they can remain in school. Jeshua's father, Chin Heng, has been contributing proceeds from his own financial classes toward this cause. Over 60 students have since benefited, and the programme continues to expand to support those affected by disasters beyond their control.

The earthquake response did come at a personal cost: choosing to extend his stay in Myanmar meant Jeshua had to cancel ten flights, including a planned holiday to Australia with Nicole and her godparents. Nicole was disappointed, but understanding and fully supportive. The couple had to pray together and choose between the comfortable and the uncomfortable, and the choice was clear to both of them. It was, in their own words, a milestone and a core memory for their relationship.

---

3. Getting Together

By late 2023, Jeshua had returned to Singapore and both he and Nicole had independently landed in the Clementi Zone lifegroup. Nicole emphatically denies that Jeshua had anything to do with her joining this group. She also denies remembering a one-on-one catch-up with Jeshua at Capitol Mall in 2022, a meeting Jeshua remembers quite distinctly.

What is undisputed is that from late 2023, Nicole began organising group activities: squash, board games, day trips to Johor Bahru, to which Jeshua was a consistent attendee. Nicole also helped Jeshua host several female colleagues visiting from Myanmar, and found herself favourably impressed: someone who had traveled the world, built companies, and apparently matured considerably since the Nokia phone debates of the Central youth group years.

Unbeknownst to Nicole, Jeshua's mother had been quietly praying for Jeshua to consider Nicole as a potential life partner since late 2023, having observed her at lifegroup gatherings and various events he was organising.

On 31 March 2024, Jeshua met Nicole at Tiong Bahru Plaza and asked whether she was ready for a relationship. Nicole's response, "Who are you asking for?", has since entered their personal mythology. Upon learning that he was asking for himself, she replied: "Not yet, but I'll let you know when I am." Jeshua went off to cycle 2,000km to Bangkok.

In July 2024, Nicole agreed to attend a film screening with Jeshua. Afterwards, she told him she was ready. They began dating on 21 July 2024, and as this was Jeshua's first relationship, he was swift to flip through several relationship toolkit guides, helped by mentors and friends from Hope. They became official on 2 November 2024, exactly 100 days from when they started dating.

Xiangyi was the first to know. The couple delivered a "ship" canvas to his doorstep, a callback to his years of fruitless advocacy, and appeared at his wedding a fortnight later, where he was visibly more excited than could be considered entirely normal at one's own wedding.

Their travels have not been without gifts. From Jeju, Nicole bought Jeshua and herself a pair of whale plushie keychains — a nod to her self-declared favourite animal and the first of many small tokens that have marked their adventures together. Jeshua, for his part, has made it a habit across his various journeys to return with souvenirs: small offerings accumulated from Ladakh, Myanmar, Bangkok and beyond. The collection has grown into something of a running joke, and a quiet record of everywhere they have been.

The proposal took place on 21 October 2025 at Tanglin Cookhouse. Jeshua fabricated an invitation to a US Embassy event welcoming a diplomat formerly posted to Myanmar, complete with a photoshopped official invite, prompting Nicole to dress up for the occasion. She walked into a private dining room full of her closest friends and a fake podcast episode recorded with William Zhao (her former youth group junior). The sapphire-and-curved-band ring had been custom-made in five days during a September trip to Myanmar while Singaporean jewellers were quoting two to three months. The final scheduling miracle: Shani's class was cancelled that day due to a festival, allowing all of Nicole's chosen friends to be present. Nicole said yes.

The couple completed their Marriage Preparation Course through Hope Singapore in September 2025 and have since been making plans toward their future together, wedding preparations and how this next chapter together will look like. They have traveled together to Jeju Island, Myanmar (twice), Bali, Oman, the UAE, Bahrain, Malaysia and Thailand. Their honeymoon will take them to Europe and Africa, so if replies are slow after the wedding, please nudge them and know that they are not ignoring you on purpose.

---

4. The Path Forward

Both Jeshua and Nicole have been shaped, in different ways and at different moments, by the same faith, and by the same community that has gathered around it. Jeshua was born into a church family, made props for children's ministry before he could read a script, and spent three decades learning that the surest way to find a calling is to show up and stay curious. Nicole came to faith through noticing God's fingerprints in her life and the loving community she found in her secondary school days.

Their story is not one of dramatic conversion or grand proclamation. It is a story of two people who took the long road, trusted that God was doing something even when it wasn't visible, and eventually found each other on the far side of a lot of life. They both acknowledge with considerable warmth that the people around them, their parents, their lifegroup leaders, and their friends who refused to stop shipping them, were instruments of something they could not have engineered on their own.

They are always happy to meet up, whether over a game of squash, a meal, or a round of Spades. For those interested in visiting Myanmar, Jeshua regularly hosts friends and visitors in Yangon and would be glad to make introductions. Nicole is on Instagram at @nicolerinah, and Jeshua at @jeshuasoh (though he will be the first to admit he is not very active on it).

They count among their blessings: a God that never fails to provide and protect, a church that has been a home since childhood, welcoming and nurturing families and relatives flying in from Australia, Canada and Malaysia for their wedding celebration.

Even though they may not fully know what to expect or their exact steps, they know the God who has brought them thus far and miraculously together, is the same God who will take them forward. It is their life's mission to live out their wedding verse in Micah 6:8 and see more of their family, friends and people from this planet earth coming to know the love of Jesus as they have for themselves.

---

5. References & Further Reading