One story that came to my mind was the story of a little boy with a big heart. This boy (like many Dominicans) comes from a very poor family and often doesn't have food to eat. One day he did something that may have seemed simple to him, but was deeply profound...he shared his chiclet.

For those of you that aren't familiar with a chiclet, it's a small piece of chewing gum that is about the size of a kernel of corn (yes, one little kernel). Well, this little boy was given a chiclet by an American visiting the Dominican Republic and what he did with it was the part that amazed me. He took the chiclet, bit it in half, and shared it with his friend.

What causes a poor child, with no food, to give up his little piece of gum? I'll let you...true friendship and love. With that in mind, I set out to help give as many children as possible a WHOLE piece of their very own gum (and show them the love that Jesus has for them).

That night I shared the story of the little boy with my father, who in-turn, shared the story with some people from my church (Discovery Church) who were coming down to the Dominican for a week-long mission trip. When the team arrived, I was given a BIG yellow bag FILLED with enough gum (the awesome bubble gum kind) to share with 400 children...and that's just what I did!

Fellow G.O. Ministries missionary (John Martinez), Dominican local (Carolina Baez), and I were accompanied by other G.O. Ministries missionaries as we had the pleasure of taking 60 children (and a few adults) from Hoya del Bartola ("The Hole"), a local community living in the middle of a trash dump, out for an afternoon of fellowship and ice cream. The children selected for this activity came from the feeding program that G.O. Ministries sponsors. At the feeding center, more than 100 children are given a warm meal six days per week. Pastor Flex and his wife Jenny administer the program and have seen notable progress in the health of the community. For most of the children, this is their only meal and without the program they would go hungry. With their stomachs full, these children are able to take the focus off of finding food and put it on other things...like education.

One the bus ride to the Bon Ice Cream Shop (the Dominican version of Baskin-Robbins), the children sang songs and laughed the whole time. When we finally got to the ice cream shop, it was a mad dash for the spiral slide and the electric rides (although the kids didn't have money to turn them on, they loved pretending). For nearly two hours, it was organized chaos in the playground with children dart every direction! IT WAS AWESOME!!