Faith Stories with Naomi Reed

“My family has a cultural heritage from Kerala, South India. We grew up in a traditional Indian church. The beauty of that was the way it instilled in me the importance of reading the Bible and praying.” “When I was 10, I remember my Scripture teacher at school asking us whether we knew for sure […]

“I had the blessing of growing up overseas, as a missionary kid. In many ways, I was very fortunate. In high school, I was part of a singing and evangelism group. We would memorise songs and Bible verses to go into the marketplaces, schools and even the hospitals, singing songs and sharing God’s truth with […]

“My wife and I were married in 1985. We shared the same values, vision and ideology. We’d both become Christians when we were very young. For the first 25 years we stayed close as we served together in churches and raised our family.” “Then we started to grow apart. We were different in our approaches […]

“In 1991, my wife and I were living in Melbourne. We were involved in the church, in leadership and other ministries. I was working as an electrician. Everything was going really well. Then, leading up to that year, we had a number of miscarriages. In early 1991, Fiona was pregnant again and she had several […]

“Sometimes God allows you to be at the right place at the right time. You don’t know why, or how, but you’re simply there, trusting him. We lived in a small town in North Africa for 12 years. My husband worked in community health and I home schooled our four sons, in the desert. Back […]

“I grew up in a small Hindu village in central Nepal. There was no electricity. The only form of transport was by foot. My parents were Newari. They followed the Hindu religion, with a mix of Buddhism and their own customs as well. There were so many gods. My mum would pray to them, every […]

“I came to Christ when I was in high school, as a teenager. I was reading Matthew 16:13-18. Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was … and Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus then told Simon that he would build Christ’s church. The question resonated […]

“I grew up in a Christian family, going to church twice on Sundays. We lived a safe, conservative life. I committed myself to Jesus when I was 16, and I married Paul when I was 19. From very early on, we both had a heart for overseas mission. We travelled to developing countries and we […]

“I went to church originally because I was a people-pleaser. I had very faithful grandparents who always prayed for us and asked us to go, but I always declined. I found my worth on the football field. At school, I was teased a lot. I had red hair, freckles and I was big. I didn’t […]

“I was born in New York State, USA. My father was an agnostic Jew and my mother was a nominal Catholic. When I was two, my mother had a mental breakdown and my three sisters and I were all put into foster care.” “We were taken in by an older, German widow. She was 58 […]

“Before 2004, I’d never even had a speeding fine. Then, in my late twenties, I was an acting general manager of a finance corporation. I made an investment on behalf of the company and I received a financial kickback … which I should have known was the wrong thing to do. I went to court […]

“I was living in Sydney, working as a nurse/midwife at a big Sydney hospital, and feeling led to do something mission-orientated. I heard about possibilities in Morocco and I talked to our Missions pastor, but she said that if I were to go overseas, I should be married, or go with another single friend. But […]

“I grew up in a manicured, anxious family, in suburbia. My dad worked in the bank. We weren’t allowed to own bikes or go to parties. Church-going was part of it. Every week, we’d put on a tie and sit in the same pew. It was drudgery.” “By my late teens, I was thinking that […]

“My grandparents were evangelists in the Philippines. In the early years of their marriage, they migrated from the island of Leyte to another island, called Mindanao. They started evangelising, and they planted churches there. The churches grew, and then when my mother was six years old, they moved back to their home island of Leyte […]

“My earliest memories are in Papua New Guinea. My parents were Bible translators in the villages and I lived there until I graduated high school. Growing up in PNG, surrounded by people who walked a life of faith in Jesus, meant there wasn’t a time, or a day, when I didn’t know Jesus. It’s one […]

“Perfectionism was a part of my life. I am an only child, born in Hong Kong. We moved to Australia when I was six. By the time I was in high school, I went to an academic school that was very focused on marks and getting into the right university degree. I aimed to excel […]