Goodbye, Sally!

     Yesterday was a sad day, as we found our little Sally hamster had died in her cage.  She was quite the acrobat and had somehow gotten her leg caught under her house (on the second floor of her cage).  We found her hanging from the house.  This was very traumatic for the girls.  We had her since Ella's second birthday, so she's been a part of their little lives for a long time.  It was actually a perfect day for it, as Leif had meetings all morning and then all evening, but he had a couple of hours in the afternoon for us to have a memorial service for Sally together as a family.  It was also perfect that it's been above freezing for a few days, so the ground was soft enough to dig a hole.  We shared special memories of the fun times we had with Sally and the funny things that she did.  Ike was very clear that he wasn't sad and interjected comments (that if they weren't coming from a three year old would seem insensitive) here and there as the girls were bawling.  He also didn't understand what "burying" meant and kept thinking we were saying "marrying".  It made for quite the adventurous little memorial service.

     This event led to a lot of great spiritual discussions with our kids about God and heaven.  Our kids have been asking a lot of spiritual questions lately, and it's been fun to pray with them together for different people and things that are going on.  This week our teammate, Nettie, had a great English group in sharing the story of the Prodigal Son and having the students themselves tell the story.  We prayed together with the kids for the evening and then thanked Him when we heard how amazing the evening went and how well these people received the message of the father being like our loving God.  It's cool, too, because we didn't know what Nettie was sharing on and we just "happened" to as a family go over that same story that evening.  I love how God does that.

I decided to include the notes we made for Sally:



         We don't know if our beloved pets make it to heaven or not, but we know that God is loving and talks about amazing things in heaven like the lion lying down with the lamb and the snake with the infant.

I love how Ella drew a smiling Sally.

     Ike really wanted me to draw a picture of "dead Sally", as she was in her cage.  I didn't feel comfortable doing this, but Leif did it, saying that if it helped Ike, he would draw dead Sally.  What a guy!  I asked Ike what to write, and it was a little nonsensical.  =)

     I love Leif's note, too.

Goodbye, Sally!  You were a wonderful first pet for our family!