Every year for the last several years, my husband has traveled on a medical mission trip to the mountains of Guatemala. \u00a0One of his fellow team members for the last two years has been our daughter, now 11 years old. \u00a0We, of course, hem and haw about letting her go each year, but know it\u2019s an incredible opportunity for her at a young age to serve and love the children at an orphanage and its surrounding community in a place unlike anything she\u2019s ever known. \u00a0We’re also aware there\u2019s a world beyond the franch with it\u2019s own life lessons to teach. \u00a0Even though our daughter speaks very little Spanish, she\u2019s learned from all of our non-English speaking animals over the years how to show love and compassion in ways that aren\u2019t verbal. \u00a0If you\u2019ve ever witnessed a child grow up with an animal, you know what I mean. \u00a0Words can often get in the way anyhow. \u00a0It\u2019s truly something how children can easily bond with other children even though they are worlds apart. \u00a0My daughter and these precious children smile and laugh and play within seconds of meeting. \u00a0My husband sends me what I call \u201cproof of life\u201d photos knowing I worry if he\u2019s caring for her like I would. \u00a0And, it\u2019s precious to see what a blessing she is to these children and what a blessing the children are to her. \u00a0From her perspective, the children she meets in Guatemala are happy and it brings her heart joy to be with them. \u00a0Unsurprisingly, it\u2019s the so many skinny stray dogs roaming the streets that especially sadden her heart. \u00a0It became an unplanned mission of hers to feed as many strays as the leftovers from the team\u2019s meals allow. \u00a0She expresses how happy they\u2019d be living on the franch. \u00a0One day after her first trip, we were sitting outside on the franch together and she was deep in thought. \u00a0She broke the silence, \u201cWhat direction is South?\u201d \u00a0Random. \u00a0I reminded her where the sun rises on our property and she figured it out from there. \u00a0My heart smiled a few days later when she showed me a note she wrote to a new special friend from the mission trip. \u00a0It read, \u201cWhenever I miss Guatemala, which is a lot, I look South.\u201d \u00a0Words can\u2019t explain how thankful I am that my daughter is growing up to love well way beyond the borders of the franch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every year for the last several years, my husband has traveled on a medical mission trip to the mountains of Guatemala. \u00a0One of his fellow team members for the last two years has been our daughter, now 11 years old. \u00a0We, of course, hem and haw about letting her go each year, but know it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1037"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1044,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions\/1044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/franchlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}