For Pornchai Moontri, A Miracle Unfolds in Thailand
Divine Providence: Pornchai Moontri was brought to northern Thailand for his Thai ID, and then to Nong Bua Lamphu and the family he was taken from 36 years ago.
I hope you have read Pornchai’s first guest post from Thailand, “Free at Last Thanks to God and You!” This unbelievable story of grace and Divine Mercy now seems to be just beginning long after I thought it was coming to an end. But before I delve into that, I need to comment on the photo atop this post.
To formally welcome Pornchai to Bangkok, Father John Le, SVD and friends treated him to a cruise on the Chao Phraya River, a shipping lane that runs through the center of Bangkok and is the port city’s lifeline. There is a wonderful, painful, seemingly miraculous story that was set in motion just after this photo was taken at the end of February, 2021.
Pornchai’s return to Thailand after a 36-year absence was coordinated by Yela Smit, a Co-Founder of the Catholic apostolate, Divine Mercy Thailand. Yela had worked out a plan with me for Pornchai’s housing after his release from the required hotel quarantine. However, just before being released from his gruesome 5-month ICE detention to travel to Thailand, our longer term housing plan fell apart due to illness.
As soon as that happened, Father John Le offered sanctuary to Pornchai for a time of adjustment and discernment. Father John is a Vietnamese priest and a member of the Missionary Society of the Divine Word. His principal ministry in Thailand is the resettlement of refugees. Though this change in plans seemed to be by “accident,” Pornchai could not be in better hands.
On March 29, 1973, after the U.S. signed the Paris Peace Treaty with North and South Vietnam, the last U.S. troops left Vietnam. The Paris Accord did little to end the bloodshed after the departure of American forces, however. The continued presence of North Vietnamese soldiers in South Vietnam dissolved the cease-fire agreement. Without the presence of U.S. troops, thousands of refugees fled South Vietnam and a looming communist slaughter. Many fled aimlessly in small, crowded boats. John Le, at age 15, was among the famous “Boat People” who shook the conscience of the Western World.
Father Le knows painfully well what it means to be a displaced person. I was deeply grateful when Yela told me that he and his religious community stepped up to offer sanctuary to Pornchai. I had the task of telling Pornchai about this by telephone while he was still trapped in ICE detention. I remember telling him that often such a sudden change in plans is divinely inspired and becomes a source of grace.
I had no idea then just how prophetic those words would become. The story that follows is just the latest thread in the tapestry of extraordinary graces in the epic Divine Mercy story of Pornchai Moontri.
A Return to the Painful Past
In a telephone conversation with me just before Pornchai’s flight to Thailand, Father Le said that Pornchai must obtain his official Thai citizen ID which he would have received at age 16 had he been in Thailand at that time. He said he would drive Pornchai eight hours north of Bangkok to the City of Khon Kaen where his birth records are located. From there, Father Le said, they would go further north to the Province of Nong Bua Lamphu.
Father John said that his Order sponsors a home and clinic there for Thai children suffering from HIV. I was shocked by this, not by the nature of this much needed apostolate, but by the location. It was from that very place that Pornchai was taken at the age of 11 and brought to the United States against his will 36 years ago. This is an incredibly painful memory for Pornchai, and among the most traumatic times of his life. Most readers know by now the full story of all that happened after, but if you have missed it, please don’t. The story is told at “Human Trafficking: Thailand to America and a Cold Case in Guam.”
Having been abandoned by his parents at age two, Pornchai was hospitalized with malnutrition. His mother had left Pornchai and his brother to go to Bangkok to find work. She was a mere teenager herself at the time. Bangkok is nine hours away by car, and she did not drive. No one knows how she got there. But once there, Pornchai’s mother, Wannee, fell under the control of a most evil man, Richard Bailey, an American and former helicopter pilot in Vietnam. Bailey took Wannee to the United States in 1978.
They settled in Bailey’s home town of Bangor, Maine. Bailey knew that Wannee had two small sons living with her family in Thailand, but he had no interest in them until they were ages 11 and 13. He then sent Wannee to Thailand to retrieve them. If you have read the above article, then you already know all that happened next. Pornchai was victimized in unspeakable ways, and forced into homelessness at age 13. Living on the streets with no parental guidance or assistance, he became embroiled in a drunken struggle at age 18, and went to prison.
While awaiting trial, Pornchai’s mother came to visit him. Sent by Richard Bailey she was instructed to warn Pornchai of what would happen to her if Pornchai told the court the truth. This compelled Pornchai into silence and he refused to offer a defense. After the trial, Bailey relocated with Wannee to the U.S. territorial Island of Guam. Six years later, in 1998 Wannee gained the courage to leave Bailey and confront him with what he had inflicted on her and on Pornchai and his brother. She filed for divorce. The Guam court ordered Bailey to pay her a settlement sum of $1,000 per month and half the sale of their jointly-owned home in Guam. Wannee then returned to her family in Thailand to attempt to rebuild her life.
Pornchai was in his sixth year in prison in Maine at that time. Back in Thailand, Wannee had begun to have a home built on a small parcel of land she owned in Nong Bua Lamphu. She was counting on funds ordered by the Guam court to complete the home that she intended to live in with Pornchai upon his release from prison. In 2000, when it became clear that Bailey simply ignored the court restitution orders, Wannee returned to Guam to seek their enforcement.
But before her return, she visited Pornchai in prison. She told him that she was living back in Thailand building a home for them both, and she apologized for the years of disbelieving him when he told her the truth. She said she was on her way back to Guam to seek the funds needed to complete the home. Pornchai never saw his mother again. The 2000 Guam autopsy report concluded that she had been beaten to death. Her death remains a “cold case” homicide despite new evidence that has not been investigated by Guam authorities who to date remain silent.
The Odyssey Runs Full Circle
After applying for Pornchai’s official Thai ID in the City of Khon Kaen, Father John Le drove him another 90 minutes to Nong Bua Lamphu. The home Pornchai lived in as a small child had been destroyed and another rebuilt on the same site. Over his absence of 36 years, the village of small farms and rice paddies had grown into a more modern town. Nothing was recognizable to Pornchai, but just being there held him spellbound.
Having lost his mother to Bangkok and Richard Bailey at age two, Pornchai had also lost all memory of her. Growing up in Nong Bua Lamphu, he came to believe that his Aunt MaeSin was his mother. MaeSin was 36 years old when Pornchai was removed from her home. She is 72 today. Pornchai also has a cousin there who was 15 when he last saw her. She is 52 today. Before leaving Nontha Buri with Father John, Pornchai and he located his cousin and called to tell her he is back in Thailand and will be coming to visit. He had no idea what to expect and neither did his cousin or aunt. His family there did not know about all that had happened to Pornchai beyond the mere fact that he had been in prison in America.
Father John took a photograph of their reunion, captured below. A lifetime of loss and sorrow for both was suddenly transformed into a moment of great joy. I cannot begin to describe the cascade of emotions Pornchai experienced in this photo. I have been talking with him by phone at the end of each day, and walked with him through these overwhelming events.
But our story gets even more overwhelming. Pornchai learned that his Mother’s remains had been returned to Thailand and were interred in a nearby Buddhist Temple cemetery. Pornchai and Father John went there and Pornchai offered prayers at his Mother’s tomb and that of his grandmother, whom he remembers with great fondness and deep respect. Pornchai has allowed us to share this sacred moment.
I called Pornchai at 10:00 PM Bangkok time at the end of his first day in MaeSin’s company. She had suggested to Pornchai that he sleep in the house next door which was empty. MaeSin does not speak English and Pornchai last spoke Thai at age eleven 36 years ago. Love, even after decades, speaks its own language, but some details became lost in translation. When I called Pornchai, he was sitting in the empty house that his mother was having built. It had sat empty for 21 years since her death in Guam.
When Wannee left Thailand to visit Pornchai in prison in 2000 and return to Guam to confront Richard Bailey about the court’s terms, she had no idea that she was going to her death. The house she was building in Nong Bua Lamphu still contained all her personal belongings. When I called Pornchai late that night, he was sitting on the edge of his bed, overcome with emotion while surrounded by his Mother’s meager Earthly possessions. Her clothes were still in the closet and dresser. A photo of her with Priwan, Pornchai’s older brother, was on the nightstand. Pornchai had not yet been born.
Pornchai sobbed as he sat amid the wreckage of a life — his own as well as his Mother’s. It took me a moment to connect the dots and realize where Pornchai was. The emotional impact of it struck me like a thunderbolt. Pornchai is still processing all this. So am I. I told him that Divine Providence brought him to that house to honor his mother. And so he must.
I think a lot about Wannee. She had no one to protect her in life but there is much we can do for her in death. I believe that she is precious in the hands of God whose Providence has led us all to this moment. I remain deeply troubled by the unfinished business on the Island of Guam where authorities have been unresponsive to new evidence and our inquiries. These latest events are for me a wake-up call reminding me that the odyssey of Pornchai Moontri, though having run full circle, remains incomplete.
Father John Le left Pornchai in Nong Bua Lamphu for a week while he attended a meeting with his Order. On Sunday, March 7, Father Ben, a member of the order, was sent to pick up Pornchai at MaeSin’s home and take him to a nearby Catholic Mass, his first entirely in Thai. On March 12, Father John returned to accompany Pornchai on the nine-hour drive back to the Divine Word Mission in Nontha Buri.
As we wander among these dangling threads behind the Great Tapestry of God, please pray for Pornchai that he will be strengthened in his faith as he confronts the brokenness of his past.
As for me, I have been privileged to walk with Pornchai through the wreckage left behind by someone else. At this juncture, I can only borrow from the great Robert Frost in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. I cannot yet retreat from this.
“I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
+ + +
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: We would be in dire straits right now without Father John Le and the Society of the Divine Word who now comprise our boots on the ground in Thailand. I am deeply moved by their amazing support of my friend at this critical time. If you wish to help, please see our “Special Events” page.
And please share this post, and these related posts referenced herein:
Free at Last Thanks to God and You!
Human Trafficking: Thailand to America and a Cold Case in Guam
