Twins?

I cannot tell you how many times strangers ask me or the boys if they are twins.  
Now that Gabe is getting taller and their height difference isn't so dramatic, I can see them passing for two kids the same age.  But twins?  I don't see it at all.  In fact, it baffles me that teachers at school get them mixed up.  They barely look like brothers to me.
Every aspect of their physical appearance and their personalities are so different!
From the top down: light and fluffy wild hair, thick and coarse flat hair. Black eyes, brown eyes.  Jacked up teeth, straight teeth.  Curvy body, tall and lean body. And their personalities....just too many differences to even count.  My point?  They are so different and I am so glad!
I'm happy that they each have different ways to make me smile and quite honestly that they irritate me in different ways as well.  I'm not sure I could handle two of either of them.  But having one of each dramatically different kids sure keeps things interesting.
Gabriel seems to be more interested in some aspects of his faith.  He talks a lot about the spiritual and emotional areas of faith while Eli is more scholarly.  Eli can often be found reading random verses in the Bible but he doesn't have much to say about any of it.
Gabriel will speak out when he sees people making choices that are flat against the Bible and he often prays for people who are on his mind and in his heart.  Eli seems to be more cautious about offending someone of a different faith and keeps his thoughts to himself.
Eli may not talk about his faith at school but he loves friends and he really wanted to invite one of his friends to AWANA with us.  It finally worked out to bring the friend and the friend has decided to come with us every week.  Although he comes, he doesn't seem to be too interested at all in learning verses, but he comes!  Eli will often bring a copy of the verses he is working on for the week to school so he can study in his spare time and has been encouraging his friend each day at school to study his verses as well.  At school this week when Eli asked his friend if he has been studying, his friend said "I don't want to talk about it right now".  Then last night on the way home from AWANA Eli asked him "are you embarrassed that you come to AWANA?"
I was trying ever so hard to eavesdrop from the front seat.  This is the one time a mini-van works against me.  It is soo big it is hard to hear the conversations in the back row!
Since my seat location prevented me from hearing what was going on, I asked Eli about it later last night.  It was then that he told me about his friend not wanting to talk about AWANA at school and he shared that his friend said that he wasn't embarrassed, he just didn't want to talk about it at school.
AWANA stands for Approved Workman Are Not Ashamed.  It is the core verse and core believe of the ministry.  The verse reminds me of  a song we used to sing in youth group way back when "no way we are not ashamed of the gospel of his name, holy hands are lifted high to the name of Jesus Christ".  I could tell that Eli was a little concerned by his friend's answer.  I'm not sure if he was questioning whether he too should be ashamed to talk about AWANA at school or if he was worried about his friend's unwillingness to talk about it.  Either way, we spent some time encouraging Eli, telling him how proud we were that he invited his friend to AWANA and that he is encouraging his friend to study his verses.
These boys are constantly surprising me.  I thought Gabe would be the one to invite friends to church.  I really never expected Eli to be the one planting a seed in a friend's life.

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