... and transracial adoptions.

In 1897, the first African Americans in the United States were baptized as Mennonites and joined a Juniata County church, said historian Tobin Miller Shearer, a Mennonite and assistant professor of history at the University of Montana who studies interactions between white and African American Mennonites.

Now, he said, "There seems to be a predilection, or at least a tendency, for conservative white Mennonites to be engaged in the practice of adoption across race lines."

Good intentions fuel the caretaking, Shearer said, but, "Hosts are not equipped themselves to equip their children to live within a racist society."

Debate roils around transracial adoptions and fostering in general. Are youngsters better served by going to a permanent home as soon as possible, or by waiting for a same-race household? That question also hovers over the children from the Philadelphia region who live in rural Pennsylvani