Faith Stories with Naomi Reed

“I grew up in Lithgow. My mother was a Christian and she sent me to Sunday school. In 1948, when I was nine years old, I was sitting in Sunday school and our teacher was praying for us. She was planning to go to Tanzania at the end of that year as a missionary nurse. […]

“I grew up in Malta up to the age of nine years old listening to Elvis on the radio. Elvis Presley is treated like a God in Malta. Then as an adult, I became a Christian, in New Zealand, and I started doing Elvis tributes and concerts – professionally and for ministry. I called it […]

“When I was growing up, my parents sent my sister and me to church and Sunday school, across the road. They rarely came themselves, but they sent us. And very early on in the piece, I heard John 3:16. I memorised it. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only […]

“I live in Tennant Creek now. I moved here in 1978 and I got a job working for the town council. Later I went up to Darwin to study at Bible College and to find out how God wants his people to live.” “I became a believer in Jesus a long time before that. I’ve […]

“We’ve been living in Malawi for the last ten years. My husband, Tim, and I are involved in sharing the good news to an unreached people group, in a folk Islamic community. It’s been an enormous adjustment. When we first arrived here, I was completely spun out. Everything looked like it came out of a […]

“My father was killed in a quarry accident when I was 14. He was leaning over the mudguard attending to the engine of his 5-tonne tip-truck when another vehicle, carelessly driven, crushed his body, his spine and ribs. He suffered for four hours and then he died. I only saw him briefly. I remember my […]

“I came to faith in Jesus half way through my daughter’s drug addiction, five years ago. It was such a hard time. We lost my mum, my aunty and my daughter’s best friend, all in the space of three months. It was too much for my daughter. She became addicted to ice … and during […]

“It’s been a rough season. Back in March, I was faced with the decision to continue in my job but stop seeing my family, or to leave my work and go into lockdown with them. In the end it was an easy decision: one of my parents has terminal cancer and I’d been wondering how […]

“I have a tendency to be ambitious and driven … or idealistic, perhaps, so I need to watch that these tendencies don’t slip into my motivations for ministry. Years ago, I had to pause before starting training for ministry because I needed to sort out the importance of serving God out of freedom and joy, […]

“I live about 11 kilometres from the centre of Melbourne and I work with Anglican Media. Our office is at the back of St Paul’s Cathedral, which is right opposite Flinders Street Station. Normally, it’s a really busy place! It’s about as central as you can get, in Melbourne.” “But now, of course, we’re into […]

“The only time I’d ever been out in a boat was on the Manly ferry. But then in 1982, we moved to Lae, in Papua New Guinea. We lived there for a year, while we were part of a project to help restore a ship, for the purposes of sharing the Gospel. One particular day, […]

“My father did a lot of travelling for work. We didn’t see him much. And then one day, he just didn’t come home. He left for good. I left school and I got work in the timber yard, so I could pay off the mortgage on the family home. Dad had gone and if I […]

“My teen years were very angst-filled. Where do I fit in the universe? Is there a God? How do I connect with God, if there is one? I felt a profound existential loneliness. What happens when I die? My mother was an atheist, so that may have affected it. She often said that she thought […]

“I’ve been healthy all my life … so it was a big shock to be told that I have leukaemia. It came just two months after my husband, Bob, died of a rare cancer, back in 2016. Since then, I’ve had several trips to hospital for chemotherapy, and I was in remission for 18 months. […]

“In 1950, I attended a Methodist youth group as a teenager, and I remember being told by the youth group leader that God destroys the wisdom of the wise. I was stunned and I didn’t understand it. The youth group leader was quoting from 1 Corinthians 1:19 and she showed me that verse, but I […]

Warning: This Faith Story contains references to a sexual assault and a subsequent pregnancy. “I grew up in a sheltered, Christian home. My parents took me to church every Sunday. They sent me to a Christian school. We had Christian family friends who we met regularly for meals. I heard a lot about being a […]