It's early morning. I open my eyes and see the rough beams over my head and feel my little sister snuggled up against my back. It's still chilly in the room so I pull the woolen blanket up over my shoulders. I hear Mama in the other room, like every morning. She is bringing in the water. She has had the cook fire going for an hour already, so that she can start the day's cooking. Just like any morning, I hear her moving things around and starting the daily bread. I love Mama's bread. We have that simple barley bread at every meal. I hear the rhythmic sound of the bowl on the table as she kneads. I am still sleepy and I almost fall back asleep, but then I remember what day it is. It's my day out with Papa! He is going to another village to buy some new nets for our fishing boat, and he says that I can come with him! I have never been allowed to go, because mama needs me here to carry the wood and watch my sister. Papa needs me today, though. He has a lot to carry and we have no donkey, or even a cart. Papa has had a bad time this year with fishing. His boat is old, and he has a bad back. He had some other men to help him, but one of them bought his own boat, so now Papa is trying to fish alone. I wish I was older and bigger, then I could go out to fish with him. I would use my strong arms and back to pull in the nets, which are heavy even when they are empty! I wish I would grow faster.
I get up and cover up my sister. She is a little one, and she has to stay with Mama in the house. She is mostly a good girl, but sometimes she is so much trouble! She is cute when she's asleep though.
Papa says that I am almost old enough to take over some of the outside work. I am amost 9! I am tall for my age too. I have a lot to learn about fishing, I know, but when I can work with Papa I will be able to learn to mend the nets and help with the boat, at least when it's tied up. I know that fishing is a hard job, and Papa is never going to make a lot of money, but he says that if I can learn how to fish, and do business, I will always have work. He says that God always gives us enough, and that He has been very good to our family.
As I go into the next room, Mama looks up and smiles.
"Good Morning" She says, in a happy voice. Mama is always smiling and singing, even when she has to carry the heavy water, and there isn't much flour left in the jug. She loves to sing. I guess I probably know all the Psalms by heart, just from hearing Mama singing them around the house all day.
She looks back down at her bread dough and hums as she makes it into little loaves and lays them out to rise before she bakes them.
"This will be a big day for you, Silas. A lot of walking! It is a long way to the village where the nets are being made. Your Papa will be so glad to have you along, but you will have to keep up."
I go to the door, to go out and wash, "I will keep up! And I will help him with the things that he needs me to carry. I can be a big help!"
We eat breakfast and then Papa goes out to get the old net, which he will trade to the netmaker, along with some money, for the new one. The nets have been mended many times and this one is too worn out to use anymore. They are heavy and hard to carry but Papa is only taking one of them so he will carry it and I will carry the other things. I have a bag with our dinner, and the money.
Mama says "I have packed a dinner for you and Papa so that you will have enough to eat until you get back. I put in an extra loaf of bread, to give to whoever you find along the way that is in need of food. We always have enough and God is so good that we should always share. Silas, you will need to be the one to make sure that that loaf finds the one who needs it. Your father has to think about his business with the netmaker."
She puts her hand on my head and prays a Blessing. I smile up at her, and then pick up the bag and put it over my shoulder. It hangs down pretty low.
As I walk out the door I see Papa waiting by the path that leads to the road. Our house is on the side of a hill and we can see the lake from the roof. Our boat is sitting down near the water, and the path goes past it. We say hello to our neighbors as we pass them. Most of them are fishing families too. I see a couple of boys that I sometimes play ball with, and I wave at them. I am excited that I get to go out on the road with my Papa, and I will be able to tell them about what I saw when I get back, even if it's just another village and a netmaker. I hoist the bag and walk faster to keep up with Papa.
As we come up the hill and out onto the road, we are surprised by the many people that we see. At this time of day, the road is usually almost empty. I don't get to come up to the road very much, because Papa says that we should only go out on it when we have to. It is a place where all kinds of people pass, and while most of them are just doing what we are doing, going from one place to another to do some kind of business, there are also people that are there to do bad things. There are people that steal goods and money, and there are even people that will hurt you just because you are on the road. He says that they are hard people, without any care for others. I don't understand why a person would hurt another person for no reason.
There are all kinds of people walking. There are men in nice clothes leading donkeys, and there are people pushing carts with other people in them. There are whole families walking with small children. There are lots and lots of poor people! I think of the extra loaf in my bag. I guess I won't have any trouble finding someone who needs it. The hardest thing will be deciding who needs it the most!
Papa looks kind of unhappy. He was planning to walk fast, get to the netmaker around the middle of the day, and get back in the evening. The crowded road is going to make the journey much slower. I hear him say to himself, "Well, this was the wrong day to try to go out on business. What is going on?"
I look up at him, and I hope that he won't change his mind and go home. I know it's hard to walk fast, but it is pretty exciting seeing so many different kinds of people. I have never seen crowds like this except during the Holy days, when we go to pray. Then the whole town comes for the occasion, but our town is small and poor, and we never see people in fine clothes!
Papa walks on for a while. He says that surely these people aren't all going to the same place that we are. They will get where they are going and leave the road sooner or later. The crowds seem almost like a stream that carries us along. We are moving slowly, but we are moving. We go on past our usual dinner time. I am hungry, but there is no place to sit down and eat, and I think Papa is just waiting to get through this crush of people before we stop. I am tempted to reach into the bag and take a piece off of a loaf, but I don't want to let Papa know that I am so hungry that I can't wait. He is older and stronger, but I want him to see that I can wait as long as he can.
As the road curves around a low mountain, we see that the people are now coming from everywhere! There are people as far as we can see, and so many of them are sick! Why would so many sick people want to come out of their homes, in the dust and the danger, to sit in a field? I have never heard of anything like it, and I don't think Papa has either, because he has stopped, and is just staring across the sea of people. He tells me to stay close, because he doesn't want to lose track of me.
The sun is overhead and it is hot. Some people are eating small amounts of food, but most of them look like they just ran from their homes without preparing for a trip. I don't understand. They are all milling around and some are pushing the sick people over to a place a little ways up the hill. I try to hear what they are all saying. Most of them are talking about people being healed. They all know someone that was really sick or dying, that was healed, and I gather that this means that all these sick people must be here to be healed, but how? I am not tall enough to see where the sick people are being taken. They just keep going by me, crying and pleading for help. If Mama were here she would reach out to them and offer to help. She is always doing things for the old people and the sick in our town. I just stand there and watch as they go by.
Children are crying and the crowd seems restless. It is clear that this is going to go on for a long time!
Papa starts to pick a way through the thick of the group, but then he changes his mind and starts to follow behind a small group of people with a sick man on a blanket between them.
"I want you to follow close behind me." He says "I am going to try to find the edge of the crowd so that we can walk around and get back to the road."
That's fine with me. I am getting more hungry, and I can't see anything. Without Papa I would be completely lost. I stay on his heels, and I am thinking about my dinner. It is right there in the bag. I can almost smell it. I remember Mama baking the bread, just a few hours ago. I look up when I hear the word "bread" just as I am thinking about it. In front of me are two men, and they look like they are about to have an argument. One of them is very upset, and the other, who has a lot of very wild hair, is trying to talk to him.
"Phillip," the man with the wild hair says "you need to calm down. If he said it, then there is a reason and we need to figure out what he is talking about."
"Andrew, there are people here that have walked all day. There are sick people, there are babies, and they have nothing to eat. Nothing. Why, that man over there, the last one to be healed? He said that his mother wanted to come up, but she was too weak to fight the crowd because she has not eaten since this morning. I don't even have a loaf of bread to feed her, let alone all these people."
I remember my extra loaf. I see papa waiting for me, but I say to the man named Andrew, with the wild hair, "Sir, if you want I have a loaf of bread that you can give to her. It's extra that my mama gave me with our dinner. She made it this morning."
The man called Phillip looks at me like he just wants me to go away, but his friend, Andrew, looks down and says "What do you have in your bag for dinner?"
I open the bag and pull out the parcel wrapped in a cloth. I open it and I show them the five small loaves of bread, and a surprise! Mama has also put two salted fish into the parcel. This is a treat. She must have thought about how long we would have to walk, and she put in two of the precious fish that Papa had caught. When he brought them home she had salted them for later, and we didn't have very many left. I just stared at them.
"I have five of these loaves, and Mama packed two fish!"
Phillip smiles distractedly and Andrew says "May I show them to someone?"
I start to worry that this may be one of the bad people that Papa has warned me about, who might want to steal our food, but then I think about what Mama would do. She would certainly offer what she had to hungry people, and he had only said that he wanted to show them to someone, not eat them.
"Well, Mama told me to share." I say, still I follow him as he takes the food. I look back at Papa.
From where he is standing he looks kind of angry and starts back toward me, but it's so loud that I can't hear what he is saying.
Suddenly all around us everyone starts to sit down.
I am still standing and trying to keep my eyes on our food, when, as the crowd settles down on the grass, I am able to see who they are showing it to. He is a tall man, as big as Papa, with a beard like Papa's. He smiles over at me, as Andrew points me out, and for some reason I think that Mama would be very happy to know that I was sharing our food with this man.
He looks at the food and he says the Blessing, like he is going to eat it for his dinner, but then he hands a loaf each to Phillip and Andrew, and then two more, and then the two fish.
Well, I think, I am going to be in trouble with Papa, because he warned me about this.
Then he hands them each two more, and then two more, and more fish.
I haven't learned much about numbers yet, but I know that he has now given more of the loaves and fish than I had in my parcel.
Papa comes up beside me, but he is looking at the man that has our food. He doesn't look angry, he looks as confused as I am, but now everything is getting very busy. There are loaves everywhere, and fish too. Andrew comes back and hands me some loaves and a few fish, with a huge smile on his face.
He is laughing and so is Phillip.
They, and a few other men, begin working very hard to hand out food to the people sitting in front of the man. Those people start handing the food to the people behind them, which is a surprise, because I know how hungry everyone is.
Papa has dropped his net, and is staring at the man, and the man is staring back at him.
I am still hungry, but the food in my bag seems like something that I should save for Mama. I wish she were here. She would go right up and talk to the man.
All the people are eating, and the babies have stopped crying, and the restless crowd has become very happy. They are looking at their bread and fish and some of them are crying. Some people are singing and some of them are praying.
I look at the loaves and the fish and I think that this morning Mama made the bread, and a while ago Papa caught the fish. They did what they always do so that we can have what we need. And now Mama's bread and Papa's fish have been made into something that can feed a whole crowd, with a lot left over!
I look again at Papa and then at the man. He beckons me over to him. I look at Papa and he nods.
I walk over to where the man is now sitting on the ground, and he looks at me and smiles and says "Thank you for sharing your meal with us today. It is very good."
I look around at all the people eating the little dinner that I had packed. I don't know what to say, so I just say "My Mama made the bread."
"Please tell your Mama that she makes very good bread, and tell her that Jesus says Thank You."
"Ok, I will! She will be so happy to hear that her bread helped you. She is always giving it away."
I pick up the bag, that now has enough bread and fish for supper today and dinner tomorrow.
"Well, Bye." I say "We have to go get my dad's new net, he's a fisherman."
"I know a few fishermen," says Jesus "It is hard work. Have a safe journey."
I turn around and walk over to Papa. He lifts the net over his shoulder, and we begin to walk around the edge of the crowd. He looks down at me and says "It's so odd, my back feels so much better."
