T2U

Eli and Ezri huddled together in the kitchen, scared to death of what had just happened in the shed.

“Dad is going to be…” started Ezri.

“…so mad at us!” finished Eli.

The identical twins looked at each other, wide-eyed and afraid. Anyone watching this brother and sister would hardly be able to see the differences between them, from their movements to facial expressions. Except for Eli looking more like a boy version of his sister Ezri.

“What…” began Eli.

“…are we going to do?” whispered his sister.

Finishing sentences for each other and mirroring how the other moved and behaved was a normal thing for these twins. Being in trouble together was also pretty normal. Eli and Ezri liked doing everything together, especially competing against each other. In this case, though, Ezri was wishing she hadn’t joined Eli in his adventure.

“I guess we should just wait until dad gets home,” said Ezri slowly.

Quietly the two children walked up the stairs to their rooms. As they opened the doors to their rooms, a glimpse of the personalities of each could be seen.

Eli had several bookshelves lining his walls, crammed full of adventure stories featuring secret detectives and spies. He also had a lot of books on astronomy, maps of the stars, and random gadgets cluttered around the room—early science experiments that he loved to do.

Ezri’s room, on the other hand, was as neat as a pin. Mature for her age, she had pictures of places all over the world covering her walls. Her desk had pens laying out, ready for her to write out the short stories that she was forever working on. A book about the French language and another book about the German language could be seen on her bookshelf—just two of the languages she wanted to learn. All foreign languages fascinated her. Someday Ezri hoped to become a missionary and share the news about Jesus to people in their own language.

Missionaries were people with whom both Eli and Ezri were very familiar. Their grandpa and grandma were missionaries to a remote village in Latin America. Their grandpa, Joseph, had served as a missionary to Argentina for two years, when he met and fell in love with Elianna. They married and three years later had their first child. Joseph and Elianna proudly named the baby Elijah, and they prayed God’s blessing upon him just as God had blessed the prophet Elijah in the Bible.

And God did bless their son Elijah. Elijah of the Bible had been a prophet and been given many spiritual gifts from God. Joseph’s and Elianna’s Elijah was gifted mentally. He was a super brain! He became a world-famous scientist, mostly for his inventions that were used to advance the freedom causes of the United States military.

Ezri walked into her room, sat down at her little desk, and sighed. If only there was someone to talk to, she thought, glancing at a picture frame containing a photo of a beautiful, olive-skinned woman smiling out at her. I wonder what Mom would tell us to do?

Ezri and Eli had never known their mother— Angéla. Elijah and Angéla had gotten married late in life. Elijah was so involved in his career, inventing things, he didn’t even think about dating until he was 30. At 38, Elijah finally met a Hispanic woman named Angéla, and within a year they were happily married. Just a few years after that, Angéla became pregnant with twins.

Ezri’s father, Elijah, had often described their beautiful mother to the two twins. He shared how, together, they had focused their lives around Christ. He liked to describe how Angéla’s love of God could be seen in everything she did and said.

The twins loved to hear about how their parents had chosen their names: Eli and Ezri.

As Elijah would tell them, “At first we thought we were just having a baby boy. And we decided that as I was named for a prophet who was blessed of God—Elijah—we wanted our child to also be named for a prophet blessed of God. The prophet who followed after Elijah was Elisha. And the Bible says Elisha had a double blessing from God.

“Well, we were in for a surprise when one day, shortly before you were born, the doctor told us that we weren’t having a boy. We were having a boy and a girl! What were we going to do about a name? We finally decided that we would take the single blessing of the name Elisha and split it into two: Eli and Ezri. Similar names. Shared double-blessing. It was perfect!”

But the story was not all happy. Angéla had died giving birth to the twins. Elijah became so sad that he could not eat for days. The only thing that kept him going was his desire to provide a great life for his newborn twins.

Because Eli and Ezri were born premature (that is before their small bodies were fully formed), they were weak and required much care by the hospital doctors and nurses. Each day Elijah would visit the baby nursery where Eli and Ezri lay fighting for their lives.

“God, I hurt so much,” Elijah prayed softly. “My heart is breaking for Angéla…yet so full of joy for these two little ones You’ve given me. Dear Lord, if you will heal my broken heart, I promise to do everything within my power to raise up these babies for You. I commit them to Your plan for their lives. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.”

And so it was a little family that lived in the house with the mysterious shed in the back. And as Eli and Ezri sat quietly in their rooms, wondering what their father was going to say to them, both had moments of wishing for a mother to talk to—wondering what might have been different if she had been there.

Let’s Talk

1. We learned that Eli and Ezri are twins who do everything together and even seem to think and act alike. They are best friends as well as brother and sister. Who is your best friend and why?
2. If you could become best of friends with someone special at school, who would that be and why?
3. Eli and Ezri have a very unique family history. So do we. Let me tell you all the great things about our family [explain].
4. In this chapter, we learned that Eli and Ezri’s mom, Angéla, died just after she gave birth to them. That’s sad. Do you know any friends at school whose mom or dad has died? Or do you know any kids at school whose mom or dad don’t live at home with them any longer? What can you do to show them kindness and to make friends with them?
5. Do you feel uncomfortable making friends with others who aren’t like you, even someone who isn’t kind to you or who seems shy? What do you think you can do to still be friends with people like that?
6. Let’s talk to Jesus for a moment and ask Him to help you be good friends with other kids you may not know—so you can show them kindness and maybe someday tell them about Jesus. Let’s pray that Jesus will help you treat others like He would treat them.