Faith Stories with Naomi Reed

“My parents grew up in Indonesia and they were both prisoners of war during WW11. They survived and were released after three and a half years. Dad was so thin his parents didn’t recognise him. After meeting each other, my parents married and later moved to Australia. Dad always had a desire to go back […]

“I feel unworthy telling my story. I’ve made stupid mistakes. Maybe my story speaks more of God’s patience than anything else. I’ve always known about God. My family were churchgoers and my father built the pews in our church. I’ve known that God was there, but I thought I could come and go as I […]

“My parents separated when I was five, and so I was an angry kid. I used to fight with my mum a lot. It was the time of the divorce and I was struggling with my identity. But we also started going to church and I sort of grew up there. I heard about God’s […]

“I grew up not believing in God. I had a troubled youth and I struggled with eating disorders, depression and drugs. By the time I was 21, I was a heroin addict. At 22, I realised I was going to die if I didn’t do something, so I went to the Buttery for seven months. […]

“I moved house when I was 21, to a suburb in Brisbane. One of my new neighbours said that the other neighbours were religious fanatics. I knew I needed help, though, and it was Easter Thursday, so I drove around my suburb looking for a church advertising their Easter services. I couldn’t find one, so […]

“An unexpected trial came during Monika’s pregnancy. It shook my faith. It made me cry and rethink God’s ways. We received a blood test report showing our baby had a high risk of T21 Down syndrome. My wife cried a lot. We were both shocked. The doctor gave us the option to terminate the pregnancy. […]

“I grew up in northern Pakistan, in the foothills of the Himalayas. My parents were both shaken to spiritual life and gripped with a passion to share the love of Jesus. They set off by boat, as American missionaries, to Pakistan in 1953 and they planted spiritual seeds there for 38 years. In Pakistan, boys […]

“I am from South Korea. My parents are farmers. Their parents (my grandparents) were Buddhists but my parents followed no religion. We lived very peacefully. Then one day, when I was in year 6 (12 years old), my second oldest brother passed away. He was in year 12 at that time. He was being bullied […]

“There were a lot of hard things going on in my family – use of substances, mental health issues. I was in my late teens and I was at the point of desperation. And somehow, the Holy Spirit spoke to me really clearly. It was out of the blue – not through contact with any […]

“When I was 16, I decided I wanted to be a doctor. Growing up with an Asian mother, medicine was always a desirable occupation! I studied hard and got in. By the time I was 21, I noticed that although I was good at taking 15-minute patient histories (working out problems and solving them quickly), […]

“I remember going to ‘Christians in business’ conferences with my dad, as a teenager. It was huge modelling for me. You could have faith in Jesus, as well as a work ethic. You could be an entrepreneur and a Christian in business. You could be a patron of the Gospel and you could do it […]

“My parents were in Christian ministry (in India) from the time I was about three. We were financially stretched at times, but they made sure I was sent to a good private school. Once a week, we would have mufti day. Most kids would turn up wearing shoes, but I didn’t have shoes, so I […]

“I don’t think I was a particularly nice child. If someone said or did something mean to me, I’d react, and try to get them back, usually with my words. If they said something that I found offensive (which was quite often), I’d say something to get revenge or cut them to shreds. Then I […]

“I was adamant that I would never become a pastor. I grew up as a pastor’s kid. My dad was a Uniting Church minister in Queensland and I saw what it was like for him. I saw the challenges and the toll it took on him and our family. After school I moved to Cooma, […]

“We lived in the Middle East for 22 years, with our son and daughter. I was working in Arabic adult literacy and teacher training. Then, in 2007, we came home to Melbourne and I began teaching cultural anthropology at the Church Missionary Society (CMS) training college, as well as in other Bible colleges. What I […]