The Henke Family

From top left clockwise: Connor, Brad, Stephanie, Kennadi,
Cedric and Hayley Henke.

Stephanie Sasges Henke is surrounded by her  brood - Connor, Hayley and Kennadi - in the school library. When her husband Brad arrives with second grader Cedric in tow, they all light up. Cedric rushes to his mother, climbs into her lap, and hugs her fiercely.

This, I think, is a happy family.

Stephanie is Central Catholic's afternoon librarian. In the morning, she's the director of the First Presbyterian Church Preschool. Her passion for children is a gift to the community. In her relatively new position as preschool director, a job she was handpicked for by board members, she implements her own ideas and provides preschoolers not only a safe place to grow and play but to learn as well.

"We're trying to get them ready for the Grand Island Public School system," she says. Stephanie works hard to align her own curriculum with Grand Island Public's.

I have known Stephanie since she was a kid. Before I teach her children Connor, Hayley and Kennadi at Central Catholic, I have taught Stephanie. She is a typical middle school girl who worries about everything middle school girls do - friends, volleyball, middle school mixers. After she graduates, I don't see her again for several years. Then one day our young boys, who attend the Wasmer Elementary's Almost Home program after school, tell me all about the new assistant Stephanie. I am amazed to discover it's our own Stephanie Sasges. She is radiant, filled with purpose, and loves her job and her Almost Home kids.

"My work and love for kids really started at the YWCA and Almost Home," she says. Children will become a life long passion for Stephanie. Having her own children will also become her most fervent desire. It will not be an easy road, though.

She and her husband Brad will try for years to have a baby of their own before they finally decide to adopt. Connor, a ninth grader at Central Catholic, is their first child. Because he is African American, Brad and Stephanie are required to take classes for raising a child in a biracial family. Connor is a happy, beautiful baby and the light of Brad and Steph's lives. He is a year old when Brad and Steph begin the lengthy journey to fertility clinics and a long hoped for pregnancy. Finally, at Omaha Children's Hospital, a doctor is able to help Steph become pregnant. The result is twins Kennadi and Hayley. It is an enormously expensive process, and Steph does not attempt it again. She and Brad, however, still hope to have another child.

"Let's just make sure it's a boy," Brad asks as he and Steph begin the adoption process again. Cedric, now seven, is their last child.  Like his brother Connor, Cedric is African-American. As adopted children, they are curious about their birth families. Connor, now 14, knows he has birth siblings, but his birth mother chooses a closed adoption and has not made an attempt to contact Connor.

"When I'm 18," Connor says, "I'll try to find her and my birth siblings. I just want to know where I come from. I want to know if my birth brothers and sisters look and act like me."

His sisters tease him. One day when Connor becomes furious with his mother, he storms out the door. "Goodbye, adopted mom!" he calls over his shoulder. He laughs now and shakes his head. "I was mad," he explains. Nevertheless, it's clear that Connor, like the rest of his siblings, adores his mother and father.

If there has been one bump in the road, it's been Hayley's health. Hayley and her sister Kennadi are eighth graders at Central Catholic. In her first grade year, Hayley complains to her mother that her knees are stiff and sore. The diagnosis is a long time coming. When it does, the news is grim. Hayley has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. It's Dr. Jennifer Alberts, a Grand Island dermatologist, who urges Stephanie and Brad to seek a specialist. Stephanie is forever thankful to her.

"Everybody told us Hayley was just experiencing stress," Stephanie remembers. When Hayley's arthritis is discovered, she undergoes an operation to remove fluids and infection from her knees and begins to feel better. All in all, Hayley has endured nine operations and faces more surgery down the road. She is, however, uncomplaining about her health issue. The only downside, she says, is that because her arthritis affects her auto-immune system, it's difficult to fight off flu and colds.

"I get scared sometimes when it takes me a while to feel better," she says, "but otherwise I've just learned to live with it."

Hayley is given a weekly injection by her mother, which she hates, and takes six pills a day for her arthritis. In every other respect, however, she is like any other eighth grade girl who throws herself into school.

Stephanie has always loved Central Catholic and wanted her own kids to attend school there. "GICC has always meant a lot to me. Teachers really cared about me, and it's where I made some of my very best friends. I want my own kids to have that and to learn about their faith in a Catholic school atmosphere."

Connor, Kennadi and Hayley love their school and teachers as well. Hayley remembers that religion teacher Joanne Oltean took a special interest in her and was concerned about her arthritis. Kennadi, too, is a fan of Mrs. Oltean's. "She really taught me a lot about our faith. And I like Father Scott (Harter), too," she grins. "He gives the best homilies. I always listen because he makes it so enjoyable."

On this Friday afternoon after a long week of school, the entire Henke family is ready to watch some high school football. Connor is a freshman on the Crusader team, and all the Henkes are wearing Crusader blue shirts and sweatshirts. Stephanie beams at her happy, active family. Her children, she says, are all uniquely themselves. Connor is the outgoing kid, Kennadi's the positive one, Hayley's bighearted, and Connor is definitely the loving child.

"I always like to say that my boys are a gift from Heaven, and my girls are a gift from science. But they are all," Steph smiles, "a gift from God."