Hamster Story.m4v

I have a question for you first. Do any of you have any pets? Oh, what kind of pet do you have? Dog and geese. Dog and geese. Wow, that would be an interesting combination. Does the dog chase the geese around?

No.

No, that's good. And what about, new question, do any of you raise pets to sell? What do you have? My mum, she sells, she raises guide dogs to sell for— Guide dogs for the blind?

Yeah.

Oh, that's fantastic. Well, I want to tell you about when I was in grade 7, my mom, she's always raised animals, and even right now she still raises animals. She raises dogs, and she has lots and lots and lots of dogs. But when I was a little boy, I was watching what happened. She would have— her dogs would have puppies, she would sell the puppies, and she would get money. And I said, "Hey, this is a good way to make money." So I said to my mom, "I want to do this, Mom. I want to make some money selling some animals." What should I do? She said, why don't you go to the pet store, and when you get to the pet store, ask them, the pet store owner, what they want to buy. So I went into the pet store and I asked them, and they said, we could really use hamsters. You guys know what hamster is? Hamster, little fuzzy thing, looks like a guinea pig only shrinked. It's a tiny little, little thing but really fluffy, like a mouse with no tail, tiny little tail, and really fluffy. So he said, what we need is we need little hamsters because lots of kids like to buy them as pets. So I bought a boy hamster and a girl hamster, and I took them home and I put them in an aquarium together. You know what an aquarium is? The cage with the glass walls. And I said to my mom, how long will it be before they have babies? She said, oh, hamsters grow up really quick, it won't be very long. And sure enough, a few months later, the mommy was pregnant. And her little tummy got tighter and tighter until one day I looked in the aquarium and what do you think I saw? Lots of tiny little pink Naked babies, no hair, and their eyes were closed and they couldn't see. And all they could do was smell and they would just find their mommy for a drink. And I looked in there and I said, oh, they've been born. And I ran out to breakfast and I told my mom, the babies have been born. And I told my brothers and sisters and they came in and all, they were all excited. And then that morning we went to school and we went out and we were getting in the car and I said, wait a minute, I forgot something, the hamsters. And I ran back in because they were against a brick wall in my house and I thought they're going to get really cold. So I picked up the aquarium and I moved it over into the window, and then I went to school. And I thought, then when the sun comes out and goes across to warm them up. Well, I went to school, and that day at recess I went out to play at recess, and I was playing out in the playground. It was hot. Whoo! I was sweating. And then lunch, I came out again to play and it was hot again.

Whoo!

And finally school was out and we got to walk home from school, but I didn't walk. I ran. And I ran as fast as I could home because I wanted to go see my baby hamsters. And when I got there, And I went in my bedroom. What do you think I found? They were dead. They'd been cooked by the sun. Oh no, I was so sad. And so I took them and I put them in a little matchbox and I put them outside, dug a hole, buried them, had a funeral for them. And I waited until the next litter was born. I was going to be more careful with this next litter. And so they were born sometime later and I had a plan. I said, I'm going to I'm gonna do something. I'll put a board behind half of the aquarium so that it's cold on one side, sunny on the other. The mom can move, or the dad can move the babies across. So I put them in the window, went to school, came home from school. What do you think I found? Dead. They were dead again. The babies had all just— the mom and dad hadn't moved them, and so they just stayed in the sun. So sometime later, and I had another litter of hamsters, and these ones I said, this time I am going to make sure it works. So I put the board in there, and it was Sunday, so I had all day at home with my hamsters. And I went to the kitchen after I had the board there, after the aquarium was in the sun, and I got a piece of cheese. And I went to the spice rack and I got some coriander, put it on there, salt, pinch of salt, pinch of pepper, perfect. Walked back to the aquarium, leaned right over the aquarium, and ate the cheese. And it started to work. I started to shrink. So I climbed up on the desk and got next to the aquarium, and then I got smaller, so I climbed up on the edge of the aquarium, and I was getting smaller, and pretty soon I dropped into the aquarium and I was a tiny little boy. Then something really weird happened. I was— and fur popped out. I was a hamster. And I started walking around. And I still had all my little boy smarts. But I went over to the hamsters And I said, you have to move the babies. You have to move the babies from here to there to save their lives. And the mom and dad hamster couldn't understand me because I don't speak hamster. And so I listened to them for a little while and I learned how to speak hamster. I'm not going to tell you how. I'm just going to translate the rest of the conversation. And so the hamsters, I explained to them that the babies were all dying. And they said, yes, we know the babies are all dying. And I said, well, you need to move them "From the sun into the shade." "What do you mean the sun?" "Um, the big hot thing out there, out the window. That's cooking the babies." "No, you mean the great warmth." The mom was arguing with me. "You mean the great warmth." And I said, "Yes, the great warmth." Well, the mom said, "The great warmth doesn't hurt the babies. The babies all die. The great warmth just keeps them warm until they die. All of our babies have died." I said, "Yes, all your babies have died, but they don't have to die. If you would move them, they would be okay." "No, it's not true." And I said, "Look, let me show you." And I started to move one of the baby hamsters. The mommy went, "Ahh!" And she said, "Leave the babies alone!" And she's chasing me. So I ran over, I said, "Okay, what am I going to do? I've got to explain this to them. I know what I'll do." And so I reached down with my teeth and I grabbed a bit of my fur. And I started pulling all of my fur out. And I got everything except for a little ring of fur right around here, because I couldn't get to it. Then I said, "Watch." And I went over and I laid down on top of the babies. And the mommy and daddy watched me. "You're not hurting our babies?" "No, just watch." And the sun started hitting my skin without my fur. And it was hot. And at first it felt okay, but then it started to sizzle and I got hotter and hotter and hotter until pretty soon I was just so hot and I was breathing and then— I died. Well, I was dead, so I don't know what happened next, but I'm pretty sure that the mom and dad came over and put their noses underneath me and rolled me to the other side of the aquarium and covered me with the sawdust that was on the bottom of the aquarium. Because a few minutes later, I went, "Aah!" And I started to sit up, and I started to stretch back up into a little boy. And I grew taller and taller, and I climbed over the side of the aquarium, and I hopped down, and I looked in through the glass and wanted to see if they had learned anything. And I watched. And I was amazed as the mommy went over and she picked up one of the babies and she moved them from the shade into the— from the sun into the shade. And the daddy helped, and they'd learned something. Now, how many of you believe my story? Part of it was true. I did have a litter of hamsters that I cooked, but I had to actually move the aquarium back and forth for those hamsters because I couldn't teach them anything. But do you know, it sounds silly that I would become a hamster, but do you know God, the God of the universe, became one of us. That's even more amazing than a person becoming a hamster. God becoming a person. That's what God did for us. And you know why he did it? Because he loved us. And he came and he taught us how to live. He taught us that he would die for us so that we could live forever with him. And what I want you guys to realize is that Jesus loves you so much that he did that for you. He became one of us. So that we could live forever with him. Oh, here comes Brian. What are you gonna— no, don't. Now get the scissors away from my tie. No, well, you can cut it again, who cares? You ruined it already.

I just, just, just— I've got an idea to fix this. So, well, what are you—

you're gonna cut it again?

It's okay, it's okay, it's the last bit of my tie. So we're just—

what are you doing?

Oh, we'll just, we'll just try something here. What?

How did you do that?

So there you go.

You fixed— but it's—

Look, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay. Look, so let's go to a break and we might tell some more stories now that you have your—

My oven deal time.