A long long time ago, there was a young boy who lived with his father, mother, and little sister. The little boy's father worked nearby at the village bakery, so the family always had lots of fresh bread and delicious goodies to eat.

Even though the father worked long hours, and the family didn't have much money, they never worried because God always took great care of them.

The little boy’s sister was only a few months old so she didn’t do much that he enjoyed doing. She did however do a lot of eating, sleeping, and crying. His mother seemed to spend much of her time sitting in her favorite rocking chair, singing sweet and soothing songs to rock the baby to sleep. 

The mother and the boy seemed to have a special closeness and she would always tell him that God was going to use him in a very important way. Every day before the little boy would go out to play, his mother would pray with him and ask that God would do something special in his life.

When it was time to leave, the mother always gave the boy two shiny pennies. This may not seem like very much today, but back then it was a good bit of money. He then would give his mother a kiss and was off on his way. 

As soon as the boy opened his front door to go outside, he could barely take one step out before smelling the most wonderful, sweet scent coming from the village bakery where his father worked.

Because the bakery was so close to his home, he would run there every morning to visit his father before going to his special place in the forest. He always came out of the bakery with a bag of breads and goodies to nibble on throughout the day. 

After leaving the bakery he would stop at the candy store and with those two shiny pennies he’d treat himself to some special candies. He would proceed to his special place in the forest where he liked to pretend he was King. He pretended that servants would wait on him and bring him his meals and always saved his special candies for his royal desert.  

For some reason, things went a little differently today. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want candy. Instead he was in the mood for something different, so he went through the village to the market.

Walking through the store he looked at all of the good foods. He could smell the fresh fruits and veggies, and back in the distance he saw the fisherman bringing in the catch of the day. Wow, he couldn’t believe there were so many fish!

As he walked closer, he could smell the live fish. They were even still flopping around on the table! Being a little boy, he thought that this was the absolute best! And today he knew he had to have fish. Candy could wait until tomorrow.  

“Mmm a fish sandwich” he thought. That’s what he could have for lunch today! This was especially good since he already had the bread he had gotten from his dad at the bakery.  

Now that he had his arms full of yummy food from the bakery and the market, he ran as fast as he could to his special place. 

He was pretending to be the king and having so much fun. He had sword fights, slayed a dragon, saved a princess, and he thought he could stay and play forever. All that playing made the boy start to get awful hungry. He pretended his servants were making his lunch, when off in the distance he thought he heard a muffled sound like a person talking.

At first he thought it must have been his imagination getting the best of him. But then, he heard the talking again.

Being the curious little boy that he was, he quickly decided that it was time to investigate. He wanted to see who it was that could be disturbing his play time.  

He knew about the grassy field at the end of the forest from his past days of exploring the vast kingdoms around his. He thought that that must be where the voice was coming from. So the boy gathered up his bags of food and headed toward the sound of the talking. .

When he came to the end of the forest, he selected a tree just barely bigger than himself to hide behind. He poked his head out from behind the tree and looked out into the field only to see bunches of people. He had never seen so many people gathered together in one place.