Sharing journey of adoption

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HURON — Winter Hendrickson’s passion for overseas mission trips began at about age 15.
She had become a Christian, and felt her purpose in life was to help orphans, particularly those with extraordinary challenges.
Now, with her husband, Chad, the Hendrickson family has grown with the fostering and then adoption of four children. Huron, benefiting from a diversified population of immigrants from a number of countries, has been supportive.
She has more recently started a YouTube channel to document their lives and to show other couples how they, too, can foster children and possibly adopt them.
“It’s just really encouraging people,” Hendrickson said at the Beadle County Republican Women’s luncheon on Monday.
“I’ve had a lot of people reach out to us and talk to us about the kids and about adoption and just different things that are happening,” she said.
The children the Hendricksons now call their own are Karen refugees and Native Americans. Before they were adopted, they were among the 150 million orphans in the world.
“That’s what I want to give my life to, is helping these kids that don’t have families,” Hendrickson said. “Through YouTube, I can do that in Huron, South Dakota in my living room, and I don’t have to go overseas to do it.
“I can celebrate the family and still make an impact on peoples’ lives,” she said.
The Hendricksons met while they were serving on mission trips in the Ukraine. She was working in a boys home, where kids, some handicapped, were also being rehabilitated for drug addictions. She volunteered to care for the worst cases, having a passion for those who had been neglected.

“I just learned so much and just being with those kids, you can’t walk away from those experiences not being changed,” she said.
She likes to quote a line in the Bible when talking about where her life is leading her.
“I think it’s applicable to all people. It’s about true religion as taking care of orphans and widows and their stress,” she said.
“Doing something like taking care of orphans and widows, you can never go wrong doing that,” Hendrickson said. “So I just kind of live by that scripture and I think it’s the right way to live your life.”
She also said she has absolutely no regrets spending the years she could have been in college working with the orphans in Ukraine.
“It makes all so much sense now, where we are today and what we’re doing with our life today,” she said.
After the Hendricksons were married – she had said yes to his proposal with the understanding that he would take her to Hawaii for their honeymoon and they would adopt children – they returned to Ukraine for three months.
“Something kind of happened to us when we were there,” she said. “Working together as husband and wife then, I felt like we were parents.”
In past mission trips, she believed they couldn’t do anything other than be with the kids. But now as a married couple she thought they could now potentially adopt children.
Back in the United States, they knew they couldn’t afford to do that, at least not right away, so they enrolled in foster care classes. Hendrickson said she was scared because she realized that fostering kids was also a major commitment.
But four kids now call them mom and dad, and she said she is gratified to hear Gov. Kristi Noem encourage South Dakota families to consider becoming foster parents.
Closer to home, five couples who are friends with the Hendricksons have started taking foster care classes.
And her YouTube channel has 850 subscribers and 100,000 views so far.
“It’s so rewarding to me to be able to have this experience,” she said.
Their church and the community have been very supportive.
“I love Huron,” she said. “Huron’s probably the best place on earth to raise a multi-racial family.”