Faith Stories with Naomi Reed

“I grew up in a high mountain village, in Caucasus, Southern Russia. It was a Muslim area. In my heart, I was a devout Muslim, although I didn’t wear head covering. I would fast and pray and listen to Islamic preaching. They said if you don’t follow Islamic teaching, you will go to hell. I […]

“Growing up in Palestine, with an Islamic background, I knew a few Christians (and what they believed), but I thought they got it wrong. The first time I knew there was a different story (to the Islamic story) was from a TV cartoon. The cartoon was made in the US, and broadcast from a channel […]

“Perth in the 1960s was fairly provincial: to be pregnant and unmarried was unthinkable, a shameful disgrace. I was so naïve, I didn’t even know I was pregnant until five months. I was also self-centred and had other plans for my life. So, when my parents arranged for me to be sent to Melbourne to […]

“I always knew I was adopted. I didn’t look anything like my life parents or my brother: they were peas in a pod … and I looked like I was photobombing the family photo! While there were some issues growing up about where I came from, I knew I belonged with my life parents. My […]

“Back in the 1950s, Sydney was running out of water. Only 20 per cent of the city had proper sewerage and it was becoming critical. I was a student engineer at the time, and I was sent to work on the building of Warragamba Dam. There were 2000 of us, working 24 hours a day, […]

“I’m 101, and I’ve still got most of my marbles. I’m weak in my body but I can still pray. I have much to be thankful for! The Lord Jesus has become increasingly real to me since I first opened my heart to him at a Scripture Union camp in London when I was 17. […]

“My mum and dad were Hindus when they married. But my grandmother was a Christian. She prayed and fasted all the time, like anything. She was a prayer warrior. Sometimes, she prayed overnight. Seven years after my mum and dad were married, I was conceived. When I was born, my mum and dad dedicated me […]

“Sadly, the home I grew up in was domestically violent. My father was a petty thief and a compulsive liar. He had a few spells in prison. When I was five, the police came and arrested him for stolen goods that he’d given to us as Christmas presents. He would steal clothes for us from […]

“I grew up on a tea plantation in Sri Lanka, in the time of the British Raj. We were quite poor. We didn’t have a lot of ‘things’. We ate food from the gardens, and eggs from the chickens. But we grew up under grace. Both my parents had a strong faith in Jesus and […]

“I grew up in a devout Catholic family, where we said the rosary every evening. I remember thinking that Jesus died as a martyr or as an example of suffering. But I wasn’t sure why he did that. After school, I went to university and heard the gospel for the first time. It was like […]

“I never knew who my father was. My birth certificate doesn’t mention him. My mother was 17 at the time. Later, she became an alcoholic and she had mental health issues. Basically, she didn’t cope with life very well. When I was one, she married my stepfather. Outwardly, he came across as the great rescuer. […]

“I grew up in Karkineta, central Nepal. There was no electricity or means of transport. We didn’t own shoes. My one goal was to leave the village as soon as I could! My father was the village Hindu priest and I was his eldest son, so whenever he went away, I had to enact the […]

“I studied linguistics as part of my undergraduate degree. It wasn’t part of my original plan. I was doing Spanish and then a friend said I’d be good at linguistics, so I enrolled. I remember the first day the lecturer gave us various sentences in different languages and we had to figure them out. It […]

“I was on the hippy trail in 1972, heading from Britain to India, via Afghanistan, in search of enlightenment. It was a season of psychedelia and the Beatles. We were wearing colourful clothes, handing out flowers and talking about inner peace, love, freedom, spirituality and the new age that was about to dawn. But my […]

“Our second child, Edward (Ned), was diagnosed with leukaemia, not long after his second birthday. It floored us. We not only had to process our child having cancer, and convey that to our family, but we had to grieve the life we had planned, as well as try to keep our marriage intact, and be grace-filled, […]