The Plum Tree in the Desert

By Naomi Reed

God is at work, even in the hardest places. From across Australia, the Middle East and North Africa, Naomi Reed has collected stories of Interserve mission workers that will build faith and inspire you to action.

Naomi Reed is one of Australia’s best-selling authors in the Christian market. She is also a returned Interserve Partner! At the end of 2012, Paul Bendor-Samuel, International Director of Interserve, commissioned Naomi to write a new book, telling the best stories of faith and mission, over the last 25 years, in Asia and the Arab World. Naomi said yes to the project immediately and travelled to meet Interserve Partners who had served in the Arabian Peninsula, South East Asia, North Africa, the Central Asian Republics and the Tibetan Plateau.

The stories were powerful. Each Partner described their struggles of service, including seeing death in the raw, being held at gunpoint, living through attempted rapes, being forced to leave the country, witnessing the murder of their colleagues, and more… but within all of that, they spoke powerfully about the goodness of God, of his mercy and kindness, and what it means to persevere and trust him, even when it seems too hard. This is a book for everyone.

Get your copy

The Plum Tree in the Desert is available from Koorong as paperback or ebook.

Published by Authentic Media, 2015.

About the author

Naomi Reed is one of Australia’s best-selling authors in the Christian market. She is also a returned Interserve Partner! She served in Nepal with her family, chronicling their experiences in her first book, My Seventh Monsoon.

Learn more about Naomi’s writing at naomireed.info

A reviewer’s thoughts

“I smiled, I cried, and I marvelled, but most of all I found myself moved to thanksgiving to the Lord as I read through these absorbing stories.  Here are flesh and blood women and men, authentic in their honesty about the cost as well as the privilege of living for the Lord Jesus in some of the hardest of hard places as far as sharing the gospel is concerned, yet all able to testify that God is faithful – and that He is building His Church even there.

It is the Lord Himself who is the central character in this book.  Naomi Reed writes superbly, capturing the human stories with warmth and integrity and the divine story behind them all with thoughtful faith.  It’s a book to inspire – to pray, to reach out lovingly to those of other cultures and faiths, and to commit our lives wholeheartedly to the Lord’s purposes in world mission today.  Read it – with heart and mind and life tuned in to whatever the Lord may say to you!”

Rose Dowsett, mission writer and researcher