Double Delight

That sounds like an ice-cream flavor.

Not really, but close. This is not about ice-cream but about two delightfully sweet little people . . .

Every Saturday at four PM, you know exactly where to find Tony—at home. Whatever he might be doing, wherever he might be before the hour, he makes sure he's home by four.

That's the schedule of the twins to come for their one-and-a-half-hour study session with, yes, Tony.

The twins are Maika and Nikka, seven years old. They live in an abandoned house not too far from ours.

Tony used to see them playing down the street in the morning when he did his morning walk. Last summer, he encouraged them to attend DVBS in our church by providing their tricycle fare for all of six days. Then one day, he happened to ask how old they were.

They said, seven.

"Where do you go to school?" he asked.

"We don't go to school."

"Why not? You're seven; you're supposed to be in first grade."

Silence.

"Every child of school age should be in school," my husband grumbled in his grumpiest mood when he came home.

"There's a public school in the neighborhood," I replied.

"The school in church, is it open to grade school?" he asked.

"Yes, but it isn't free. And there are uniforms and books and other expenses," I said. "Their parents won't be able to afford it."

The next thing I knew, he talked to the twins' mother and told her about enrolling the girls in our church's school. But there was one big question—qualification. The twins hadn't gone to pre-school and couldn't tackle first grade work, "Unless," the school head said, "they go through a whole month of rigid tutorials before enrollment."

They did, courtesy of my roommate, the grumbler, "Every child should have a future!"

The little girls didn't know an A from a Z, nor a triangle from a circle, nor an elephant from a whale. But their tutor said, "They have unrestrained enthusiasm and are always bubbling over with excitement!"

After one month of tutoring, they could recite and recognize the alphabet, all shapes and colors, and were raring to start school.

Two months after classes started, the girls knew how to read in Filipino, although very slowly. They still couldn't understand a word of English, the medium of instruction. The grumbler bought DVDs of Sesame Street and other educational programs. Under his breath, he grumbled some more, "My grandson, Adrian, knows all the dinosaurs and superheroes and uses 'privacy' in a sentence."

Last Saturday, they arrived saying, "Good afternoon!" and "Thank You!" after being served snacks. They shrieked with glee as they read a whole sentence and learned a new English word.

"They are still behind," their teacher reported, "but they are a million times better than when I met them the first time."

Maika and Nikka, doubly delighting us with their spunk and sweetness, will get there. I know it in my gut and heart. God's grace never fails.