Quote from Forum Archives on October 8, 2001, 12:24 pm

Posted by: dhaley <dhaley@...>

Lisa,

I know you typed to Johanna but I had to type to your question regarding the
interacial family. I want to share a story with you that is true. It
happened to a friend that I've somewhat lost touch with except for a few
emails a year. SueDawn has a large interacial family. They have a ministry
of adoption and at last count I believe had 13 children. I've sort of lost
track. A couple of the children are biological but they rest are all
adopted and many with special needs. SueDawn and hubby looked for years for
a place to go. They wanted to live plain but just couldn't find something
that met their needs. Deal after deal fell through. Then one day they were
able to obtain a farm that seemed like a dream come true. Not only did it
have a large farm house to accomodate their large family but it also had a
mobile home where her daughter, hispanic son-in-law and new baby
grandaughter could live. Her daughter wanted to live near her mother and
help with all the children. We all rejoiced for them. We couldn't believe
it was finally happening for them. They gave their notice on their rental
home and the man that owned the farm was gracious to let them move in before
closing. They had taken two loads to the new farm, about 3 hours away.
Hubby and Son-in-law had just loaded the truck in Memphis and were on the
road to the new farm. SueDawn received a call from the Sheriff telling them
not to come. She was in shock, people in area found out that they had an
interacial family and had burned down the mobile and left behind a white
cross in the yard. The sheriff told them they'd moved 2 miles over the
imaginary line where people of color could live. They were devestated. The
seller let them back out of the deal given the circumstances but they lost
their earnest money, were out the expenses of having made two trips to the
farm (actually more than that) and having rented a truck. I'm not trying to
dissuade you from TN but I think you are justified in being concerned about
the interacial issues. Where we lived in Indian many Amish and Mennonite
families adopted bi-tri racial children and it was commonplace. Not so in
TN. I don't think it's because they don't want to adopt the children, I
believe they too know it's not accepted very well. You need to go where God
leads you....Deanna P.S. Just heard there is a Conservitive Mennonite
family starting a church in Duluth somewhere. Now MN is very open to multi
racial families....very common place here....Deanna