Huron couple adopts four children
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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.