Silent Tears

A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage

By: Kay Bratt

Narrated by: Shannon McManus

When her family relocated to rural China in 2003, Kay Bratt was thrust into a new world, one where boys were considered more valuable than girls and poverty and the one-child policy had created an epidemic of abandoned infants. As a volunteer at a local orphanage, Bratt witnessed conditions that were unfathomable to a middle-class mother of two from South Carolina.

Based on Bratt’s diary of her four years at the orphanage, Silent Tears offers a searing account of young lives rendered disposable. In the face of an implacable system, Bratt found ways to work within (and around) the rules to make a better future for the children, whom she came to love. The book offers no easy answers.

While often painful in its clear-sightedness, Silent Tears balances the sadness and struggles of life in the orphanage with moments of joy, optimism, faith, and victory. It is the story of hundreds of children - and of one woman who never planned on becoming a hero but became one anyway.

©2011 Kay Bratt (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Eye opening!

Enjoyed the detailed journal entries by Kay Bratt of her experiences in China, specifically at the orphanage. Commend her efforts to be an advocate for any improvements in their surroundings and care. Appreciate all the volunteers who are making a difference!

Great Informative Tead

I was thoroughly impressed with the info and honesty of this author. I will never visit China but I know some adopted children from there. One never wonders about foreign adoptions but I am glad to get inspirations about how Kay and her family made them part of her life even when it was difficult. God bless you.

Good, but somewhat sad

I learned a lot from this book. Other cultures are so different than our ways here in the U.S. It takes a lot of courage and compassion to do what this lady did. God bless her.

Chinese children needing parents.

This book was written by an American expatriate that volunteered in a Chinese Orphanage in the early part of the 2000. She learned what difficulties females were having from the one child policies. She set up a volunteer organization using women expatriates and funds received from Christian churches, doctors, American citizens and Chinese citizens who donated money and care to aide the orphans. An excellent book about Chinese culture from the view of expatriate. Her dairy help her to cope with the situation and educate people about adoption of Chinese children and what it takes to live as a foreigner in another culture. The narration was good and the story educational.

This was a moving acct of life in a Chinese Orphanage

This is a valuable read for anyone who would like to read a first hand account of life in an orphanage in China. It was very informing and moving for me. My BFF was adopted to the USA from Seoul, Korea, in 1963, while my son helped in an orphanage in Taiwan in 2006 called The Home of God's Love. Two great people Ted and Beverly Stiles started this orphanage 45 years ago...back in 1972...and it's still thriving today in 2017! The struggles these babies in China faced in 2007 were horrific. Thanks to the awesome author of this book who started loving on the Chinese people as a lowly 2 hour a week volunteer...and grew into David facing Goliath as she attempted to create changes and enrich this Chinese orphanage! Thank you for all of your love and work that you have given and continue to give to this people group!!

A heartbreaking eye opener

Living in a first world country, I was oblivious to the terrible things that are going on in third world countries, a true eye opener

Very informative and enjoyable

I felt that this was probably an accurate explanation of Ms. Bratt's experience. I came to love the kids and the other volunteers. I loved hearing about her travels through China. It was great finding out how the adopted children were faring in America.

I know this volunteer work was tremendously stressful and I appreciate her efforts, just as do all the people whose lives she has changed through the years. If you love kids, you'll probably enjoy this book.

The performer was good, but a little slow. I put it on 1.25 speed just because I am impatient with such deliberate readers.

Good

Sad. I can't believe what these children have and still go through being in a orphanage. My heart breaks for them.Thank you for all the parents who trust in love and guidance

This story will forever change you.

Regardless of who you are or where you come from, chances are you have never had to withstand the challenges and circumstances the children in these Chinese orphanage have had to face. This book plumbs the depths of rough beginnings to a degree that age 61 I really have never heard of. For that I feel shame and guilt. While so very sad it also inspires me to see the hope, love and goodness God has put in the hearts of the volunteers and adopting parents whose story is told here. I particularly enjoyed the parents letters to Kay at the end of the book. I am also so very humbled by the willingness of the volunteers to subject themselves to this kind of environment and trauma knowing they could add even a small measure of love and kindness to these precious child lives. The willingness of the volunteers to hold in their devastation, sadness and anger to relate to the paid caregivers so as not to loose accessibility to children who so desperately need examples of loving humanity. This book forces me to pray that God would use this to change me from within so that He can use me for the good of those less fortunate.

Read this in print

Any additional comments?

On one hand, as a book itself, it is compulsively readable, but as an audiobook, it doesn't quite work. It is entirely centered around a journal, which doesn't translate into good audio. I found my mind wandering while I was trying to focus, which is a tragedy, because this book - as a book - is a good read!