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After Sorrow Comes Joy

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AFTER SORROW COMES JOY should be required reading for all adoptive children and their families. Like the map of a family tree, this is where our children's history starts. Every adopted child deserves and needs to know where his story begins. For those adopted from Viet Nam and India this is it. But After Sorrow Comes Joy would be enjoyed by anyone who likes an engrossing tale. It's a tale filled with love and disgust, heroes and villains, sorrow and joy. The message is much more than "just another adoption or social workers memoir." It's also a lesson in the story of mankind and the parts played by every day heroes in the making of history. After Sorrow Comes Joy is one of the finest books I've read and it's the gift my family and friends will be receiving. Be sure and purchase it today.

Susan Moir /Mother of 3 children adopted from IMH India

After Sorrow Comes Joy is the riveting autobiographical story of Cherie Clark's entry into the world of international adoption. It culminates in her dramatic, humanitarian efforts to aid the babies and children left disolute by the aftermath of the Vietnamese American War. Inspired by her own adoptions and a meeting with Mother Teresa in India, Cherie responded to the call of her heart to journey to Vietnam where she founded the International Mission of Hope. After Sorrow Comes Joy documents the story of how Cherie found a home in Vietnam caring for the sick and abandoned babies and children trapped in a frightened and poor war-torn country.

Following the end of the Vietnamese-American war, Vietnam was still torn in two by fighting between the North and South Vietnamese armies. Americans, Europeans and thousands of Vietnamese people were rapidly fleeing the country as city after city fell to Communist rule. This stirring account describes how Cherie Clark cared for the babies and children of Vietnam during this period of chaos, uniting them with families and medical care and food that they needed to survive. It is also an account of bureaucracy gone amoke. Normal channels failed as families and even basic government services were caught in the a war crashing down upon them. During this upheaval the heroism of the Vietnamese and Americans who cared for the orphans and abandoned children is heart wrenching. After Sorrow Comes Joy brings this tulmultuous time back to life with clarity and intimacy.

Readers will find themselves captivated by many of the scenes in this book - including Cherie Clark's heartfelt return to Vietnam 20 years after the war, her children's escape from a collapsing Vietnam, her first visits to the orphanages that many continue to adopt from today, and several kidnapping attempts including that of her own daughter.

After Sorrow Comes Joy is informative and engrossing on many levels. It is an historical account of the beginning of adoption in Vietnam. It is a personal account of a family's growth through adoption. It is a stirring documentary of a period of history that for years has remained best forgotten, but which still startles in its immediacy. Hundreds of pictures flesh out the dramatic stories. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of Vietnam, in the antecedents of Vietnamese adoption or in the International Mission of Hope. Rarely do adoptive parents get such a personal glimpse into the lives of those who will be assisting them as they find their own forever families.

As an airlift adoptee, this book was a powerful way of connecting to a past I know so little about. Cherie's book opened my eyes to the circumstances that led to my adoption and helped me gain a better understanding of the conditions at the time and the heroic efforts Cherie and the many others took to save our lives.

For many of us adoptees, we will never know our birthfamily and this book is as close as we can get. This wonderfully written, poignant, honest book gives us back our past and give us a connection to the country that released us from her embrace before we could recognize her smells and understand her culture.

I recommend this book with all of my heart to any airlift adoptee who is struggling to understand their humble beginnings. In these pages, you will find your past and can begin the road to understanding and reconciling the pain of not knowing where you started.

In "After Sorrow Comes Joy", Cherie Clark opens the pages of history to a subject heretofore overlooked -- the war in Vietnam from the perspective of it's tiniest, most helpless victims. In an amazing story of selfless dedication to a cause greater than her own, Clark has literally given life to what were society's throwaways and joy to the thousands of adoptive parents who have brought these children into their homes.

Her story is nothing short of amazing. An anti-war activist, Clark was not content to merely protest her government's action, she felt that there was something she should do. She packed up and moved to Vietnam, in the middle of the war, with seven children in tow. From her arrival, through Operation Babylift and the fall of Saigon, "After Sorrow.." is one woman's testament to love, faith, and courage.

For this reader, the book was a total page turner, and I was sorry to see it end. Fortunately, with two more volumes in the works, there is more to come.

As a mom of biological children as well as a Vietnamese daughter, Kelly, I quickly "connected" with Tom and Cherie Clark in the first portion of Cherie's book, After Sorrow Comes Joy. Reading some of her statements, was like a flashback to my thoughts and feelings during Kelly's adoption. One of the comments was when Cherie said, "pregnancy did nothing to prepare me for this intense longing I would have for a child I had never met." It's one of those things you can't adequately explain to people who haven't been there.

Cherie's vivid descriptions of life in Vietnam help me to understand more about the birthcountry of my daughter, and the devastation that was caused by a war I was too young to care about at the time. The Clark's desire and willingness to live in a war-torn country and care for so many needy children, should ignite in all of us a greater desire to deny ourselves and serve this world. They made a significant difference in so many lives. A difference that continues into the present and future of many lives.

Cherie commented that during one of her trips back to Vietnam, the "smell of Vietnam" overwhelmed her with memories of her time there. I remember the first time I walked into the Denver Vietnamese market after adopting Kelly. I burst into tears, because the smell was the smell of me finally going to Saigon and seeing my baby. Nothing ever smelled so wonderful! Another thing you can't adequately describe to others.

As my husband and I pursue the adoption of a Vietnamese boy with the help of Cherie's organization, International Mission of Hope, I feel indebted to her for her active expression of love for my baby's country, for her love of orphans and others in need, and for her desire to give up so many American comforts to experience the the vast joy that comes only from denying yourself and serving others wholeheartedly.

This rivoting book gives us an insight into the chaos and confusion of the Vietnam war, where many helpless victims suffered hopelessly. Cherie Clark's courage and personal sacrifice, placed her right in the middle of this dangerous conflict. Cherie's writings give an insight into what can be done for others, even in extreme conditions. But most of all, it is an amazing historial account of events, that took place so far from from American soil, and yet is so deeply enbeded in our national psyche. This was a story that needed to be told, and was done so in an exciting, no holds barred way. From her birth to her evacuation from Saigon, Cherie left us wanting more.

After Sorrow Comes Joy is the incredible story of a woman who discovered her inner strength in war-torn Vietnam and directed that strength towards a resolute purpose: helping the smallest victims of the war. Facing hurdles and obstacles that would cause most people to quit and return home, Cherie Clark refused to give up hope for the children that had been entrusted to her care. I found the account of events leading up to the fall of Saigon impossible to put down once I started reading.

Cherie describes her experience in such a way that I feel as though I lived through it all with her. My emotions ran the gamut from despair to hope, anger to determination, exhaustion to joy. And in all cases there was an overwhelming awe that Cherie was able to stay so focused on her one purpose of saving children - and through that find peace.

I found myself sitting quietly as I finished reading and reflecting on the glimmers of hope from people like Cherie Clark that shine through the tragic consequences of war.

This book was a total sensory experience and I'm anxiously awaiting the next two books in the trilogy!

This book is necessary reading for anyone who wants a complete picture of the Vietnam War. Cherie Clark's memoir succeeds where so many other memoirs, histories, and journalistic accounts fall short. While most books lose interest in events after the final American troop pullout in 1972, Clark's book provides a vivid depiction of life in South Vietnam during the frantic final years of the war. The book also fills the gap left by so many accounts in its description of the desperate conditions endured by regular Vietnamese caught in the middle of the conflict. While issues of global politics and military strategy comprise the vast majority of books published about Vietnam, Clark's book is exceptional in its unflinching view of how the consequences of those issues affected the lives of so many women and children. From beginning to end, After Sorrow Comes Joy is gripping, honest, and interesting. But perhaps its most valuable contribution to the field of books about Vietnam is the surprising level of decency and hope evident amidst all of the suffering. Many of the Americans and Vietnamese described in the book go on to use their wartime experiences as launching pads to careers in humanitarian work throughout the world. And for that hopeful quality alone, Ms. Clark's book is a rare standout. As a Ph.D. student concentrating on Southeast Asian history, I would recommend After Sorrow Comes Joy as an important contribution to the canon of works on America's involvement in Vietnam. I would also recommend it as a great read for anyone interested in stories of unheralded but heroic Americans doing the anonymous humanitarian work that is so often overlooked in books about soldiers, protesters, and policy makers. It is a different Vietnam story, but it is one that should have been told a long time ago.

In this remarkable book Cherie Clark recounts with great emotion and historical accuracy the events surrounding the Vietnam Orphan Airlift. When I wrote my book, This Must Be My Brother, I shared my isolated story from my dramatic involvement in the Airlift. I coudn't wait to read Cherie's book and I clamored to learn "the rest of the story". I am amazed and in awe of the horror and love endured by Cherie and those facilitating the rescue of nearly 3000 orphans.This incredible book is written with honesty and honor. I applaud Cherie Clark for inspring the world by sharing her heart and her soul and her story.

A clearly spelled out remembrance of what it's like to answer in the affirmative the words of St. Jude, "better to light one candle than to curse the darkness," despite bottom of the barrel, my-sack-is-full frustration, fatigue & discouragement. The often disheartening work of rescuing children, named & nameless, all innocent, from the ravages of civil strife.... saving them for their futures, whatever & wherever that may be. A story over flowing with hope - disguised as fearful waiting, weariness, heart-breaking anguish.

The first person singular recollection of the frustration of working against the stream of the common interests in a time & place of civil war. Facing uncaring beaurocracies & self-serving individuals that even in peace can be overwhelming this story of Cherie's early life & life work affords a glimpse into the process of a woman wakening to her potential and her destiny. The inner resistance and unpleasant decisions one encounters when faced with life changing decisions are glimpsed, quickening to her mission of hope. Seeking a balance between obligations to herself, her family and the small, forgotten & shunned members of the family of Humanity in the midst of war, her story gives bone & muscle to some of our own longing.