Pornchai Moontri: A New Year of Hope Begins in Thailand

Pornchai Moontri arrived in Thailand in early 2021 during a global pandemic and after a 36-year absence. Life has been a daily struggle, but hope is on the horizon.

January 3, 2024 by Pornchai Maximilian Moontri

Editor’s Note: Pornchai Moontri is now the Asia Correspondent for Beyond These Stone Walls. The image atop this post depicts the route for a high-speed passenger and cargo rail that will have a depot in Pak Chong, Thailand where Pornchai is now living. His most recent post, which we will link to again at the end of this one, was the very moving “On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized.”

+ + +

Sawasdee Kup, my friends. When Fr Gordon MacRae asked me to write the first post of 2024 at Beyond These Stone Walls, I was excited. But when I asked him what I should write about he said “Just write whatever comes to mind.” Now I am just totally nervous! This was during a phone call to Thailand from the little barred room where we once both lived in Concord, New Hampshire. Being there was supposed to be a punishment, and in many ways it lived up to that expectation. But in spite of it, there were also very special things that happened there. I learned the ways of Divine Mercy there, and was touched by it. We conversed with St. Maximilian Kolbe and our Blessed Mother there, and they answered us.

It was from there that Father G helped to win my freedom and from there that he walked with me every day through the daily torment of ICE detention and deportation. Every day for 150 days trapped in crowded ICE custody during a pandemic, I would wake up and ask the Lord if this might be the day I will be free. Then at night I would go to bed asking for the grace to cope with yet another day. Father G reminded me that this is how we live now — in union with the Suffering of Christ.

After 29 years in prison and over five months in ICE detention, I finally arrived in Thailand on February 9, 2021. I thought I would burst with excitement, but in reality, I was filled with fear. Because it was in the middle of the Covid pandemic, the Thai government required me to stay alone, with no human contact at all, in a Holiday Inn hotel room in Bangkok for fifteen days. I have to say it was a lot nicer than all my other stays in solitary confinement.

Back in 2005, after several years in the prison version of solitary confinement, I was moved to an over-crowded prison in New Hampshire and many years of never, ever being alone. After that, the sudden aloneness of a Holiday Inn hotel room felt scary. But in a daily phone call, Father G walked with me through that trial as well. His contacts here arranged to have a Samsung Galaxy smart phone placed in the room before I arrived. You would laugh if you saw me trying to figure it out. I had never before seen one. It was like an alien device to me.

At the Home Page on the little screen, I typed in “Beyond These Stone Walls.” I did not expect anything to happen, but suddenly there it was! For eleven years I could only imagine what this magical blog looked like. I remember the Psalm, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” I think people on the Space Station could have seen my smile when Father G appeared on my screen and I heard him speaking.

I had stumbled upon a video documentary interview that he once told me about. But now I was seeing and hearing it. It was 2:00 AM and I was exhausted from jet lag and the 24-hour flight to Bangkok, but I wanted to hear it all. Just like old times, however, Father G put me to sleep! That was the end of day one in Thailand. You can read the rest if you want in one of the first posts I wrote from here: “Beyond These Stone Walls in Thailand.”

Photo by Diana Robinson (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED)

The Lion Kings

Then came the hard adventure of adjusting and thriving as opposed to just living. That was the challenge Father G gave me. “I don’t want you to just survive. I want you to thrive.” Well, that has been a harder challenge, easier said than done, but I haven't given up on it. Neither has Father G.

Sometimes I felt like Simba in The Lion King. Banished from the kingdom and trying to find his way in a strange land separated from all he knew, Simba could only imagine his father’s voice. For a time after my arrival in Thailand, I was living with Father John Le, SVD and some members of the Missionary Society of the Divine Word. Father John, who is now the local superior for the Thailand province of his Order, became a very good friend to both me and Father Gordon.

Father John manages a Vietnamese Refugee Project in Thailand. On my last day in hotel solitary, he showed up to pick me up. People being deported can take nothing but the clothes they are wearing, and mine were meant for Concord, New Hampshire, not Thailand where the temperature was about 114 degrees Fahrenheit and super humid.

Father G and our friend Viktor Weyand had some U.S. funds sent for me ahead of time, so Father John took me shopping for clothing more suitable to Thailand. He took me to the biggest and busiest shopping mall in Bangkok where I had a panic attack from being around so many people. I heard of this happening to other former prisoners. One day a few months later, Father G challenged me to go back to that mall. I could walk to it from Father John’s SVD house where I was living then. It was a sort of personal triumph that I went back there and just walked around for a couple of hours.

I did not buy anything, but it helped me not to panic so much around crowds of people. Language was also a problem. I look Thai and have a Thai name, but no one could understand me or why I looked so confused when they spoke to me. It was embarrassing and I could not explain the long traumatic story that led up to this moment.

Over the next few months, I had the great honor of helping Father John with food distribution when visiting the Vietnamese refugee communities he serves in Thailand. One of these visits took me to the far Northeast of Thailand about nine hours drive with Father John to the place where I was born and where my mother’s little house still stands unoccupied. I lived there with my aunt and cousins until I was eleven and was taken from Thailand. My mother was later murdered. Father G told that awful story in “Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam.” I cannot bring myself to read it, but I lived it.

On one of the refugee visit trips north, Father John and I ended up staying at that house. There were lots of memories, many of them painful. Some of my mother’s things were still in the house which was left unoccupied for over 20 years. I have traveled back there a few times to work on my mother’s house and make it habitable, but it became clearer to me that I cannot live there. I had been gone for too long. The family I thought I remembered no longer remembered me. With help from Father G and Father John, I had to accept that I no longer have the family I thought I had in Thailand.

Father G and Father John are my family now, and Chalathip, a retired teacher and benefactor of Father John’s refugee work. She also took me in. She convinced Father G that I must relearn Thai, and cannot do so while living with four priests who spoke only Vietnamese. Chalathip lived just a short walk away on the same street as Father John’s SVD Community house and she offered me an empty apartment on her second floor.

Father John and Father G speak often and Father G still calls me every morning. He calls at 6:00 PM which is at 6:00 AM for me. I never imagined that someone’s guidance would become so important to me. For much of my life, the only voice I listened to was my own. That did not always go so well. I have learned that family is not always just the blood that runs though our veins. It is where our heart is. I am blessed with the example and fatherhood of two priests who live selfless lives and work tirelessly for others. They are, to me, The Lion Kings.

Independence Day Delayed

Back in 2006 or so, at just about the time Father G and I met, I was told by two immigration officials that I would have to be deported back to Thailand when my sentence was over. I worried about this for months back then, and I could see only doomsday scenarios in my future. I settled in my mind on my imagined “Plan B.” It was built on hopelessness. My “Plan B” was to wait until my sentence was almost over, and then in the last days of it, I would destroy myself. I saw no other way and I did not know how to ask for help and, really, I believed that there was no one I could ask. God? Who’s he? I was proud then even though I had nothing in my life to be proud about.

Father G knew about my eventual deportation, and he kept wanting to help me prepare for it. I had not heard Thai spoken since I was eleven in 1985 so by twenty years later my Thai was all but gone. Through a Thai language publisher in San Francisco, Father G got some Thai instruction books and CDs donated to the prison library and he arranged with the librarian for me to go there twice a week to study Thai. I had the added handicap of never having learned to read and write Thai as a child.

People who have no hope don’t usually prepare for the future. I did not believe I had a future. I only had a past. But Father G was relentless. He began to poke around in my past and the dark corners of my mind where I never let anyone look. He managed to get the whole story of my life out of me. Then he convinced me to let him write about it. He told me that people in Thailand would see it, and someone there would reach out to help me. I told him that I did not need anyone's help. I did not want anyone's help. Father G saw right through that lie.

He saw other things as well. He became the only person who ever looked out for my best interest, so I surrendered control of my life to him, but he told me to surrender only to God. I tried that, and ended up becoming a Catholic on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010. I could not believe the whole Divine Mercy thing at first but I believed that Father G believed it so I gave it a try. My mother was murdered by the evil man who took me from Thailand, but Father Gordon told me that the Mother of Jesus would be my Mother as well. She put me into the Hands of the Living God.

Then everything changed. All my problems were still there, my doubts, my mood swings, my painful past. And I was plagued with nightmares. But now there was a spark of something new. One day, Gordon sat me down and challenged me that if I want to let God in, I had to abandon all thoughts of “Plan B,” so I did.

The largest religious belief in most Southeast Asian countries is Theravada Buddhism. It began in India around the Sixth Century BC and arrived in Thailand and Cambodia in the first century AD as the primary religion and philosophy of life. Like most abandoned children in Thailand, I was handed over to a Buddhist monastery for a time as a young child. When I was taken from Thailand at age eleven, all that happened before then was forgotten. So I came to God as an empty vessel.

The Train to Singapore

After a year or so in super-hot, super-crowded Bangkok, Father John and Chalathip and Father G talked about bringing me to a property Chalathip owns in the city of Pak Chong in the mountain region of central Thailand. I have lived there since. I attend Mass at St. Nicholas Catholic Church, one of three Catholic churches right here in Pak Chong, a city of about 225,000.

There are two homes on the large property. I live in the smaller one. The picture above this section is the view from my bedroom window. Pak Chong is much cooler than Bangkok, and I see Father John often because he stops here and stays with me on his way to and from his Order’s headquarters in Nong Bua Lamphu where I was born. My greatest wish and prayer is that Father G will be free, and be able to come here and stay.

Father G recently wrote about “Thailand’s Victims of Hamas in Israel.” He explained how some 30,000 young Thai men applied for work in Israel because there are few job opportunities in Thailand since the pandemic. I have to work — even if it is without income which has been the case since I arrived in Thailand. So I landscaped the entire property in Pak Chong and now it is a sort of oasis. Chalathip decided to start a small business here and rent the large house out as a vacation rental that I can manage while living in the smaller house.

Pak Chong is just a few kilometers from the Khao Yai National Park, Thailand’s oldest and largest park and game preserve. It still has tigers and elephants in the wild. No one ever sees the tigers. They do not want to be seen. l repair the larger house as needed and as funds permit to make it ready for vacation rentals. In December 2023 I had our first guests, a small group that came here for an overnight to explore Khao Yai National Park. There is a lot still to be done before this small business is ready to run.

The economy here is only slowly opening up. The largest industry in Thailand is tourism, and that had been shut down for three years. Father G has been studying a promising development that will very much impact Pak Chong and the rest of Thailand. China, to our north, leads the world in shipping and transportation by high-speed railway, a technology developed in China and Japan. China recently signed a treaty with Laos — which is between Thailand and China — to construct a high-speed railway from the City of Kunming in the South Chinese Province of Yunnam running all the way to Vientiane, the Capital of Laos on the Laos-Thailand border.

Thailand did not want China to build and operate its railway system, so the Chinese agreed to provide the high-speed rail technology while Thailand builds it. It will stretch from Vientiane in Laos in the north all the way to Bangkok in the south. The hopeful news is that a major depot on the trade route and passenger rail is being built right here in Pak Chong. Father G had me take the photos of its construction above.

It is a 2.5-hour drive from Pak Chong to Bangkok, but the high-speed railway traveling at 240 kilometers per hour will reduce the travel time to just under one hour.This is promising news for Pak Chong which is situated right on that route, and for the Thai economy and its major industry, tourism.

Father G created a map of the route which is expected to be completed in Pak Chong in 2026. Once it reaches Bangkok, the Thai Capital, China plans to pick up completion of the railway again and extend it all the way down the Malay Peninsula. When complete, the high-speed rail will extend from Kunming, China through Laos, Thailand, and Malaysia, and finally connect with Singapore. Father G said that a major depot on the route will exist right where I have settled in Pak Chong, and that may be an act of Divine Providence. I hope so.

Umm, did I just mention “Hope?”

+ + +

We found this June 2023 article “Phase 1 of high-speed rail ready ‘by 2026’” in the Bangkok Post.

Note from Father Gordon MacRae :

Our Tool Fund Project for Pornchai and Father John Le’s Refugee Program are still active at our “Special Events” page. Pornchai, Father John and I are deeply grateful to donors who contributed this past year.

You may also like these related posts by Pornchai Moontri:

On the Day of Padre Pio, My Best Friend Was Stigmatized

Free at Last Thanks to God and You!

Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand

Imprisoned by Walls, Set Free by Wood

Father John and I caught this giant Mekong River catfish one day. I had to hold it down before it could swallow Father Jonah ... Umm, I mean Father John. We put it back in the river where it swam away after giving me a rather nasty look. I will never swim in that river again.

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

The Music of Eric Genuis Inspired Advent Hope

A prison concert by composer Eric Genuis and his outstanding musicians made Advent spirits soar for a prisoner priest and an old friend whom you have come to know.

December 13, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

“Music is a language with the profound ability to stir the heart, inspire the mind, and awaken the soul .”

— Pianist and Composer Eric Genuis

Note from the Editor: The above image shows Eric Genuis and his ensemble performing his composition The Butterfly at a Concert of Hope in Ft. Collins, CO.

+ + +

I have, over time and of necessity, become somewhat attuned to signs and wonders here at Beyond These Stone Walls. As Advent loomed, there was no shortage of them and little time to ponder them. The wonders began in the weeks before Advent began. I was descending the multiple flights of stairs from the prison law library where I work as a clerk when, at the bottom, I heard someone call my name.

It was the Director of the prison’s Recreation Department who stopped me. He asked if I know a music composer named Eric Genuis. I said that I did not, but that I had heard of him. “Well, he has heard of you, too,” said the Director adding, “We are scheduling a music concert with him next month, and he emailed me to ask if you might be able to attend.” It was suggested that I keep an eye out for the notice and then sign up if I want to go. Weeks later, I saw a poster advertising the concert. There would be two performances in the prison gymnasium, one at 8:30 AM and the other at 1:00 PM. I signed up for the earlier one thinking that it might be less crowded.

When I arrived for the concert that day, all the front rows were filled with prisoners anticipating something very special. Like a good Catholic, I took a seat at the end of an empty row of seats at the rear. Then someone came over to me, pointing out Eric Genuis conversing with some of his musicians off to one side. I got up and walked over to them. Eric spun around and vigorously shook my hand. “This is Father MacRae, the priest and writer I told you about,” he said to the others. I wanted to sink back into my seat and disappear. Eric spoke of it being an honor to meet me and said that he is a reader of Beyond These Stone Walls. Others in the small group also shook my hand and commented that they appreciated my recent post “Pell Contra Mundum.”

Thirty years in prison have not exactly left me accustomed to recognition, or even basic human respect for that matter. Being where I am, I do not have a sense of the impact of anything I write or of who reads it. When we finished our greetings, Eric asked me for a blessing. Every eye in the huge room was riveted to this scene as I made my way back to the seat I had just vacated. I will get back to this in a moment.

The Memorare

By longstanding tradition at Beyond These Stone Walls, but with occasional exceptions, we publish one post per week on Wednesday mornings. The tradition was born out of the limits of prison writing. As described here recently, this blog has to contend with many obstacles to appear in print. With no computer and just an old fashioned standard Smith Corona typewriter, I count on postal mail — sometimes in vain — to get my completed post from New Hampshire to New York each week. However, one particular post did not cooperate. It was “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Some Older Songs.”

Fourteen days after mailing it, that post still had not arrived for scanning and editing. So we had to do the unthinkable. At the behest of our editor who does all the hard work, I had to dictate my new post word for word over the telephone while our editor typed it one character at a time. She was a paradigm of patience while I imagined little clouds filled with expletives hovering about my head like in the comic books while she typed.

Adding to the frustration, just about every phone call from prison is dropped multiple times and has to be reconnected. Writing like this leaves me feeling a bit like Saint Paul in the middle of his shipwreck (2 Corinthians 11:25). So here we are in the middle of the Second Week of Advent, and I struggle to decide what I will write about in this post. Advent is a most difficult time for a Catholic writer who can publish only once per week.

The reasons may not be so obvious. Just two days after my Wednesday post of last week, the Church honored the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, a most important Marian Feast that I cannot let pass by without notice. She is central to Advent, and there is no Christian hope at all without her Fiat, her “Be it done to me according to Thy Word.” I wrote of her during a past Advent in “Saint Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us.” (We will link to it again at the end of this post.)

Then, just a few days later in Advent is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a very special Catholic observance for me because she appeared to me as well. Hmmm — I should modify that a little. She did not appear as she did to Saint Juan Diego on Tepayac Hill in Mexico in 1531. She came to me quite differently, and it could easily be dismissed as coincidence, but it wasn’t. You had to be there to see and feel the impact of it, but no one was there except me. Ten years ago, in 2013, I was leaving my job in the prison law library for the day late in an afternoon.

There is a computer at my desk there containing the Law Library database that I must use daily. As I was shutting everything down for the day, I had the sudden inkling to change the background image on the screen. I had never done so before, so when I went to the listings of thousands of background photos to choose from, I could see only identifying numbers but no text or titles or descriptions. I had but minutes left. So I randomly chose one of them only by number from among the thousands of numbers on the screen. I could not see it. Then I shut down the computer.

My next work day that year was December 12, but I was not even conscious of the date. I arrived at my desk at the usual time on that morning and booted up the computer. I opened drawers to pull out files I had to work on, and when I looked back at the screen, I gasped. There was no one I could tell because no one here would understand it and the few who might understand it also might not have believed it. So I told no one except my friends Father Michael Gaitley and Father George David Byers who both took it in agonizing stride.

On my screen that day was a brilliant painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe as she appeared to Juan Diego on Tepayac Hill. In the background is the modern day Basilica of Our Lady, all painted on a canvas in Mexico City. Then, as if tasered, I noted the date this happened. It was December 12, 2013 — ten years ago on the Feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. My friend Father George David Byers found a grainy copy of the same image which is posted above, but it does not do justice to what is on my screen.

Two other things happened in the months preceding this. Two persons who had been my friends in prison also became my family. It was mostly by default because none of the three of us had one. December 2013 was the most trying month of my entire, and entirely unjust, imprisonment. It was also the month that Pornchai Moontri and I, with profound reluctance at first, signed up for a six-week program that would end in our Consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That story is told on the Marian Fathers own website in “Behold Your Son! Behold Your Mother!”

Then, in that same month, our other family-friend, Alberto Ramos, was suddenly transferred from New Hampshire to a Florida prison from where we would likely never see each other again. “Likely,” however, does not always get the last word.

Now back to 2023 and the Eric Genuis concert ... .

The Measure by Which You Measure

After Eric and his musical entourage asked for a blessing, I made my way back to my seat — only now there was someone else sitting in it. To my utter shock and surprise, it was Alberto Ramos who ten years earlier had been moved to another state to serve out his sentence. Discounting that anything positive can come from any association between prisoners, most states do not allow them to communicate with each other. So for ten years there was nothing but silence from or about Alberto who was sentenced to 30 years in prison at age 14. He is now 44, and has never known any other life.

I wrote of Alberto’s life, and his offense at age 14, in a post many years ago entitled, “Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being.” In 2022, after ten years in distant silence, I wrote of him again in “The Measure by Which You Measure: Prisoners of a Captive Past.” Here is an excerpt from that post:

“Alberto was 14 years old when the knife in his hand severed the artery of an 18-year-old with whom he struggled. It was a vicious end to a late night drug deal gone very bad in a dark Manchester, New Hampshire alley. It happened in 1994, the same year that I was sent to this prison. It seemed a flip of a coin which combatant would die that night and which would survive only to wake up in prison. At age 14, Alberto had won the battle but lost himself. Sentenced to a prison term of 30 years to life, he spent his first few years in solitary confinement. The experience extracted from him, as it also did from Pornchai Moontri, any light in his heart, any spark of optimism or hope in his eyes.

“Then, when finally age 18, Alberto was allowed to live in the prison’s general population where the art of war is honed in daily physical and spiritual battle. It is a rare day that a City of Concord Fire Department ambulance doesn’t enter these prison walls shutting down all activity while some young man is taken to a local hospital after a beating or a stabbing or a headlong flight down some concrete stairs. The catalyst for such events is the same here as it was in the alley that sent Alberto here. There is no honor in any of it. It is just about drugs and gangs and money.

“Alberto’s path to prison seemed inevitable. Abandoned by his father, he was raised by a single mother who lost all control over him by age 12. Drugs and money and avoiding the law were the dominant themes of his childhood. By age 14, he was a child of the streets and nowhere else, but the streets make for the worst possible parents. In ‘Big Prison’ it was discovered that there is more to Alberto than the violence of his childhood. Alberto was 22 when he earned his high school diploma here. He will soon be released after having spent more than two-thirds of his life behind bars.”

The photo atop this section is that of his graduation class at Granite State High School within the New Hampshire State Prison. I wish today that I could have made a movie clip of that graduation. Pornchai Moontri was the class valedictorian so he had to give a speech. Alberto, who is just over Pornchai’s shoulder to the right, snickered when Pornchai momentarily lost his place, but quickly recovered.

Back to the concert again. When Alberto was brought back to New Hampshire from prison in another state to prepare for his upcoming release on parole, he was housed in a different unit than the one I am in. When he saw a poster for the Eric Genuis concert, he signed up hoping that he might see me there. It is for Alberto and Pornchai and thousands like them in prisons across America that Eric Genuis so gracefully and generously shares his God-given gifts.

It is very difficult to describe in words. Eric Genuis is a world class classical pianist and a composer of the most stirring music I have ever heard. Eric’s piano, along with accompaniment from a cello, a violin and the angelic voice of a vocalist reached deeply into our souls. After the ensemble’s rendition of “Panis Angelicus,” an original composition by Eric Genuis with words composed by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Alberto turned to me with a look of awe. “I have never heard anything like this before,” he whispered with tears in his eyes. For the next two hours, we and others in that gym were lifted up and out of prison into a melodious visit to the lower heavens. I began to fear that we might all get charged with attempted escape.

Just a few days later, Alberto was gone again — this time to a minimum security prison unit outside these walls where he can prepare to reconstruct his broken life. Divine Mercy is real, and because it is real, Mrs. Rose Emerson read of Alberto in these pages. She is the mother of the young man Alberto killed all those years ago at age 14. She contacted me asking me to convey to Alberto her forgiveness of him, and her wish to help him when he is ready for parole and release.

On the evening after the concert, I called Pornchai Moontri in Thailand. I told him that Alberto was back, and that we had spent two hours together in a magnificent concert by Eric Genuis. I told Pornchai that we had very little by way of Advent hope going for us this year. Just little snippets of fleeting hope that we cling to on dark winter days in prison. Eric Genuis set that fleeting hope to music, and then set it ablaze.

+ + +

Notes from Fr. Gordon MacRae:

Please visit the music of Eric Genuis at www.ericgenuis.com. His cds would be a gift of hope in any Christmas stocking.

Albums — Buy them here.

You may also like these related links:

Why You Must Never Give Up Hope for Another Human Being

Saint Gabriel the Archangel: When the Dawn from On High Broke Upon Us

The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God

Our Lady of Guadalupe Led Pornchai Moontri from His Prisons

+ + +

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Old Max Moontri Had a Farm, EIEIO!

Having built with pick and shovel a 150 meter walkway on a property he landscaped, Pornchai Moontri spent his 50th Birthday plowing and planting an acre of farmland.

September 13, 2023 by Fr Gordon MacRae

I stumbled upon a late night TV movie recently — though I do not know the title — just as a young man was visiting his father in prison. I was late tuning into the film so the plot was not immediately clear. It seemed that the father was innocent of whatever crime sent him to prison and his son was very anxious to prove it. I was riveted to the scene. Through security glass where they conversed via monitored telephones, the father was urging his son to move on with his life and be free. The young man protested, “But I want YOU to be free!” His father replied, “My freedom is in witnessing yours.”

I pondered this for a few moments laying there in the dark of night in a prison cell. And then I began to cry. That was most unusual. In nearly 30 years of seeing my life implode from false witness, I can count on one hand the number of times I have shed even a single tear. It just isn’t in my nature to cry easily. I wrote once that women seem to cry much more easily than men. Perhaps men do not cry nearly enough.

That night I could not contain what was spilling out from within me. I realized with an emotional collision of joy and sadness that a part of me now compensates for my loss of freedom by witnessing it unfold in the life of Pornchai Moontri with whom I spent 15 years surviving in a prison cell. In that time, a bond of trust grew between us in a place where trust is the rarest of commodities. We became each other’s family, and the basis of our connection was always fatherhood. Pornchai never had a father. I spent the last forty one years being called one.

I was 20 when Pornchai was born, and on September 10 this week, he turned 50, so do the math. Fatherhood in this case was not an event, but a process. Over time, while learning the entire story of Pornchai’s tragic life, it gradually became my own life’s mission to secure his freedom even above my own.

Overtime, we encountered mystical connections in this bond. They include Divine Mercy and the intercessory graces of a Patron Saint who also surrendered his life in this life to save another. I do not fully understand these connections, but I know in my heart that they are there. Embracing fatherhood makes men see their lives differently. As I quoted in a recent post:

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. Now we see dimly as in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now I understand only in part, but then I shall understand fully even as I am fully understood.”

— 1 Corinthians 13:10-12

Three years after Pornchai’s deportation to Thailand, I still find myself, as any true father would, reveling in his freedom as though revisiting an inspired work of art that I somehow had a hand in creating. This was perhaps evident in our recent post about the earliest days of this blog and the first posts I wrote back then. Some readers told me that it made them cry as well, but not just from sadness. I hope you did not miss “Maximilian Kolbe: The Other Prisoner Priest in My Cell.”

A Passage to India

The interconnectedness of our lives did not suddenly end because of time and distance. In his final years here, Pornchai and I were the sole figures offering assistance to other prisoners facing deportation. Regardless of what anyone thinks about whatever offense brought them to this pass, deportation is often an inhumane nightmare impacting bonds within entire families.

One of the persons we assisted in navigating deportation was a young Cambodian man who was brought to the United States at age two. At age 22, he pled guilty to a petty crime without ever being told that doing so would result in his forced deportation. He spoke not a word of Khmer, the language of Cambodia. He was left in the city of Phnom Penh, and since then has disappeared.

One of our good friends here, Abishek, a native of India, had been in the United States for much of his adult life before some out-of-character and out-of-culture domestic dispute and breakup landed him in prison. As with most such situations, Abishek lost not only his freedom, but the entire infrastructure of his life. His close-knit family in India kept in contact from a great distance, but he leaned on Pornchai and me for moral support when he most needed it as the time of deportation approached.

In 2020, Abishek was understandably interested in the process Pornchai was facing because he knew he would soon face the same thing. He was alarmed to learn that Pornchai remained in the dismal custody of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for over five months at the height of the global Covid pandemic. I wrote of this ordeal in 2020 in “ICE Finally Cracks: Pornchai Moontri Arrives in Thailand.”

We hoped this process would be easier for Abishek once the pandemic receded, but that was not the case. He ended up serving six months beyond his prison sentence, but could not seek release because of the ICE hold on him. After waiting six months for ICE to act, I helped Abishek write to Regional ICE Headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts. Just two weeks later, he was suddenly gone in the night. That was six months ago, and for all that time we assumed that he was safely back in India adjusting to freedom, family and a new life. We thought no news was good news.

But we were wrong. A few weeks ago when I called Pornchai in Thailand, he told me that he received a call at 1 AM during the night before. ICE detainees without resources get one free five-minute call per week. Abishek used it to call Pornchai in Thailand. It turned out that for six months since leaving this prison, Abishek was stranded just 50 miles away in a jail where ICE rents space for detainees awaiting deportation. Abishek was now one year past his prison sentence.

Pornchai and I were powerless to do anything directly so I sent an email message from the tablet in my cell in Concord, New Hampshire prison to Clare Farr, a trademarks attorney in Western Australia who helped Pornchai immensely. She then called Pornchai in Thailand who gave what little information we knew about our friend’s plight. Clare contacted the Indian Embassy in Canberra, Australia and conveyed all that we told her. The Indian Embassy in Australia then contacted the Indian Government which in turn contacted the Indian Consulate. Two weeks later, just days before I type this, Abishek’s odyssey came to an end. Thanks to the intervention of Clare Farr in Australia, Abishek is now reunited with his family in India.

The bizarre thread of this story is worth repeating. Indigent ICE detainees get one free five-minute phone call per week. From ICE detention in New Hampshire, Abishek called Pornchai Moontri in Thailand at 1 AM. Pornchai then contacted me in New Hampshire. I contacted Pornchai’s advocate, Clare Farr in western Australia, who then contacted the Indian Embassy in Canberra. Then the Embassy contacted the Indian Government in New Delhi, who contacted the Indian Consulate in New York instructing them to prepare Abishek’s travel papers and fax them to ICE in Burlington, Massachusetts. ICE then booked a flight for Abishek to get him out of ICE detention in New Hampshire. After a six-month delay, Abishek arrived in India two weeks after his free five-minute phone call to Thailand. We could not make this story up!

Chalermpon Srisuttor, Mayor of Phuviang, and Pornchai Moontri.

Pornchai Set His Heart on Plowing Furrows (Sirach 38:26)

As all of the above was going on, Pornchai sent me some photos of his finished, back-breaking work creating a 450-foot walkway on property he landscaped in Pak Chong, Thailand. I actually tried to talk him out of his next project, but as the quote from the Book of Sirach implies above, his mind was made up. Pornchai has not yet received any income from the work we described in “For Pornchai Moontri, Hope and Hard Work Build a Future.”

All his hard work is building hope for a future livelihood as Thailand builds a high-speed railroad with a depot in each of the places where Pornchai is working now. I have been sending him a small amount of money each month for food and expenses. It does not take a lot — $100 U.S. dollars equals about over 3,000 Thai baht at the current exchange rate. It helps Pornchai manage food and necessities for a month while waiting for the tourism season and rental housing customers.

Pornchai is no stranger to hard work so he decided to take on another project while waiting. About 250 miles north of Pak Chong, where Pornchai now lives in the District of Nakhon Ratchasima, is the village of Phuviang (Pu-vee-ANG) . It is the place where Pornchai was born, was orphaned, and then was taken from at age eleven. There is a lot of pain there. There is also a small house and piece of land that once belonged to his mother. The house was only half built when Pornchais Mother, Wannee, traveled to Guam to her death in 2000, an unforgettable story told in “Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam.”

Not far from that unfinished house is an acre or so of farmland that belonged to Wannee. Pornchai’s extended family cultivates rice nearby, so Pornchai decided to go up to Phuviang and plant a crop. It had to be something that he could plant and then leave alone. He chose to plant cassava, a crop that grows in Asian tropical zones and is self-sustaining until harvested.

The cassava plant grows up to about 8-feet in height and its edible roots are typically three inches in diameter and up to three feet long. The roots are akin to a sweet potato, and are a staple in some Asian countries. Ground into flour, cassava is also used to make sweet bread or cakes.

Growing cassava is easy, but planting it is an enormous amount of work. Cassava roots from a past crop have to be cut into smaller pieces and soaked in water for several days. The pieces are then planted along plowed furrows as in the photo atop this post. Pornchai is pictured there along with a local helper. The photo above was taken by Chalermpon Srisuttor, the Mayor and Town Manager of Phuviang who has become a friend to Pornchai — enough of a friend to help him plow and plant an acre of cassava!

The planting was finished just in time for Pornchai’s 50th birthday. I now want to remind him that when he arrived in Concord, NH from a long stint in solitary confinement in Maine in 2005, I had just turned age 52 while Pornchai was 32. He liked to circulate handmade birthday cards for our friends to sign for my birthday. They contained snarky little phrases like “Father G loves history so much because he was there for most of it!” and “Father G knows Latin because it was his first language!” Pornchai thought I was really old back then.

What goes around comes around! Happy Birthday, Max!

+ + +

Upper right: Chalathip Chiradomrong; Chalermpon Srisuttor, Mayor of Phuviang; and Pornchai Moontri. Lower left: Since Phuviang is very near to the Thailand headquarters of the Society of the Divine Word Order where Fr John Hung Le is local Superior, he stopped to spend an afternoon with Pornchai and even to pitch in a bit on the plowing and planting. Upper left and lower right: First signs of growth a few days apart.

+ + +

Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

Maximilian Kolbe: The Other Prisoner Priest in My Cell
ICE Finally Cracks: Pornchai Moontri Arrives in Thailand
For Pornchai Moontri, Hope and Hard Work Build a Future
Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

For Pornchai Moontri, Hope and Hard Work Build a Future

After his ascension beyond these stone walls, starting life over in Thailand was not easy for Pornchai Moontri but Divine Mercy and hard work are building a future.

July 26, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

The heroic true story of former Homeland Security Agent Tim Ballard captured international attention around Independence Day in the United States this year. It is told in the inspiring and unforgettable film, Sound of Freedom. Jim Caviezel is cast in the role of Tim Ballard, a U.S. federal agent who launched a real-life search and rescue mission to save kidnapped children from human traffickers in Central America and Colombia.

Sound of Freedom is being shown in over 2,600 movie theaters across the U.S. this summer. Some of our readers hesitated to view it thinking it may be too depressing. Its subject is dark, but the film is an outstanding and true inspirational triumph that should not be missed.

The film’s topic and its aftermath have also been prominent in recent years here at Beyond These Stone Walls. It was at the center of an article published by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and republished here this week. That article is “Pornchai’s Story.”

The real story of Sound of Freedom is the triumph of Divine Mercy manifested in one man’s path of sacrifice and human courage. Though on a smaller scale, Pornchai Moontri’s story has taken a similar turn. The most amazing part of it also involves a pathway — one that seems a metaphor for the life he once lived and now lives very differently. The scene atop this post captured that pathway to a remarkable transformation.

But first, it requires some background. If you are new to this story, visit my 2021 post, “Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom.” His story reads a lot like the plight of some of the children the heroic Tim Ballard set out to rescue. I do not claim to have rescued Pornchai, but he may tell this story differently. Pornchai arrived in my life in 2005 an angry, depressed, sometimes volatile young man wholly committed to a singular, all encompassing goal: to never again be someone’s victim.

Pornchai spent the previous 14 years in and out of the cruel torment of solitary confinement. The path we were on over the succeeding years was not easy, but through Divine Mercy we built trust and became each other’s family. Fifteen years later, Pornchai left my presence a committed Catholic convert and a gifted young man. His new path in life was not to flee from his past, but to be empowered by it in the service of others.

On the morning of September 8, 2020, as we walked in the dark outside awaiting the dawn and his departure after fifteen years together, he left me in tears when he shook my hand and said with simple sincerity, “Thank you for my future.” When ICE agents arrived to take him away, I watched from afar as Pornchai walked through a distant gate. I knew I may never see him again in this life.

I had to hand him over to face his life’s next chapter alone, but like the father of the Prodigal Son cast off to a distant land (Luke 15), I worried about him. Pornchai knew so many wounds in life that even from a great distance I still had a mission to accomplish and no time to grieve. I wrote in a post for September 23, 2020 of the day he left. It was the Memorial of Saint Padre Pio and the 26th anniversary of my own unjust imprisonment. You should not miss that story either. It was “Padre Pio: Witness for the Defense of Wounded Souls.”

When I Was a Stranger ... (Matthew 25:35)

I am incredulous at the newest developments in Pornchai’s life since then, and just as incredulous to find myself still so much a part of them even from a great distance. Pornchai arrived in Thailand on February 24, 2021, free for the first time in 29 years. The photos above depict his first moments and his first meal in freedom with friends you will meet below, friends who would become key elements to a then unknown future for Pornchai.

There were many challenges. I learned that the housing plan we developed for Pornchai fell apart just before ICE agents placed him aboard a flight. Before his plane landed in Bangkok 24 hours later, Yela Smit, the facilitator of Divine Mercy Thailand, contacted me with an emergency plan to support Pornchai’s return to a country he had not seen and a language he had not heard since age eleven 36 years earlier.

Yela told me by telephone that Fr. John Hung Le, a Divine Word Missionary and head of a Vietnamese refugee project in Thailand, offered shelter for Pornchai. Father John knew this would be a difficult and traumatic adjustment. His sudden presence in this story seemed an intervention by Divine Mercy. When Pornchai’s required two-week pandemic quarantine ended on February 24, 2021 — his final stint in solitary confinement — Yela and Father John arrived to meet him. Left to right in the left photo above are Pornchai, Chalathip, Yela and Fr. John.

Pornchai came to call Chalathip “Mae Thim” (Thai for “Mother Thim.”) She lived alone in the home pictured above near the Society of the Divine Word Mission where Pornchai was to stay with Father John and two other priests. Chalathip, a devoted supporter of Father John’s refugee project, has been Catholic since birth which is unusual in Thailand, a country that is 98-percent Theravada Buddhist.

Bangkok, a city of 9.5 million, is massive and intimidating. After 29 years in a U.S. prison coupled with the traumatic events that led up to it, acclimating to Bangkok was a mountain of a challenge. “Mae Thim,” widowed with an adult daughter living in the U.K., knew that Pornchai lost his mother early in life and then was taken against his will from his homeland. So she proposed to Father John that Pornchai needs to immerse himself in Thai language and culture, but cannot do this while living with three Vietnamese priests who do not speak Thai. She offered to give Pornchai a second floor apartment in her home in close proximity to Father John.

Father John conferred with me, and I agreed with him that this would be in Pornchai’s best interest. As readers know from our “Special Events” page, I had been trying to raise funds to help me to support Pornchai as much as possible. He could have found work as a laborer in Bangkok, but at a rate of pay equivalent to just a few dollars per day for ten-hour workdays. I feared that this would delay his needed adjustment, which was massive and daunting, and that his language barrier would then frustrate and overwhelm him.

Generous readers began to assist in supporting me in this effort. It did not require a lot of money. For just a few hundred dollars a month I could support Pornchai and also assist Father John. He and Chalathip and Pornchai became somewhat of a family filling in a large gap from the wounds of life imposed upon each of them. I am grateful to Father John and Chalathip.

Pornchai was not idle. Over the coming months he volunteered for Father John’s food outreach to Vietnamese refugee families rendered without work in Thailand during the pandemic. Pornchai also worked to repair and restore Mae Thim’s home in the city of Nonthaburi just a few kilometers from Bangkok. Armed with only hand tools he devoted himself to repairs inside and out. While Bangkok’s tropical temperature soared to 46 degrees Celsius (114 degrees Fahrenheit) Pornchai restored the home and property. Despite toil and sweat, the property is beautiful, as the photos attest.

Climb Every Mountain

The rest of this story could be told in pictures, and there are lots of them. Over the coming months, a wonderful bond grew between Chalathip and Pornchai. However, Bangkok’s air quality was raising havoc with his allergies. So Chalathip brought him to another property she owns in the small city of Pak Chong in the mountainous region of Thailand about 240 kilometers north of Bangkok. The air is cleaner and substantially cooler there.

Chalathip’s property in Pak Chong has two homes, one a two bedroom cottage where Pornchai now lives, and the other a large three bedroom, two-bath home, with an adjacent one bedroom one bath apartment attached. Together they are on almost an acre of what in Thailand would be luxury property. At first, Pornchai decided to remain there to make several repairs to the two homes and property. Thailand’s rainy season can be hard on a home so he set out to repair several roof leaks.

The floors, walls, and roofs in most modern Thai homes are made of concrete which endures humidity and high tropical heat. There is no winter ice to crack it, but natural settling can produce small cracks and relentless leaks. To assist him, our friend Claire Dion in Maine ordered a case of Flex Seal products not readily available in Thailand, and shipped them to him. It is a great product and its website has videos for every application. Pornchai fixed every leaks and even those of some neighbors. At one point I thought he was starting up a new “Leaks-r-Us” business.

Then he turned his attention to the property. The result was remarkable. Using only a spade, a pickax, and lots of muscle, Pornchai transformed the overgrown property into the magnificent park-like setting pictured atop this post. Armed only with a pickax, he dug through 4-5 inches of hardened clay for a distance of over 240 yards to create a pathway across the entire property. With an ax, he chopped away a large stump that no one had been able to remove. He built or repaired yard furnishings, painted both homes inside and out, repaired a gazebo, added outdoor lights, and restored everything in sight. He removed dying trees and used the wood to line his new walkway. Then he transplanted new trees.

Mae Thim was in awe of what he had accomplished. Retired without a steady income available to her, she and Pornchai then devised a plan to use the property as a small business. Pornchai would live in the smaller home while renting out the larger one and managing the property. Pak Chong is convenient to Khao Yai National Park, Thailand’s oldest and largest park and game preserve where wild elephants still roam free.

Photos by Ik T

In recent weeks I have also learned that China is extending a high-speed railway from Kunming in its southernmost province to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, which is on the northern border of Thailand. China plans to extend the railway the entire length of Thailand to Bangkok and then extend it all the way to Singapore. Pak Chong, where Pornchai now lives, is designated to become a major depot by 2026. This promises to create a large economic change in the region bringing trade and tourists and a higher demand for housing.

Even before learning of the above, Chalathip decided to also rent her property pictured above in Nonthaburi just north of Bangkok. She has designated Pornchai as her official Property Manager. With the help of a friend, we have been building a Linkedln page for Pornchai and will link to it at the end of this post. This endeavor is not yet up and running or producing any income, but it has the potential to support them both for years to come.

For a Buddhist nation, Catholicism has an oversized footprint in Thailand. There are two Catholic universities, hospitals, and multiple orphanages and specialized residential schools under the auspices of the Fr. Ray Foundation. Pak Chong has two Catholic parishes. Pornchai attends Mass at St. Nicholas Parish where he lights a weekly candle for me and another for the readers of Beyond These Stone Walls.

Pak Chong’s location in central Thailand is midway on Father John’s route to Nong Bua Lamphu, the Thai headquarters of his order and the place of Pornchai’s birth. So Pornchai and Chalathip have made Pak Chong an overnight stopover for Father John so he does not have to drive the entire nine+ hours each way from Bangkok to the Laos border, the route he takes in his ministry to Vietnamese refugee communities. On a recent visit, Father John took Pornchai fishing. They caught a 155 pound Mekong River catfish which they mercifully released after a one-hour battle. The fish swam happily away. Freedom now means a lot to Pornchai, and apparently to his fish as well.

My role in Pornchai’s life and the salvation of his freedom and his soul is the most important thing I have ever done as a man and as a priest. It is the story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe and his sacrifice to restore life to another prisoner. I have experienced first hand the grace of the sound of freedom, and it is glorious.

+ + +

Here are some additional photos of Pornchai’s hard work.

See Pornchai’s article on LinkedIn.

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Divine Mercy Reunites Pornchai Moontri and His Brother

Midway on life’s arduous path, Divine Mercy entered the lives of Pornchai Moontri and Fr. Gordon MacRae. When the road led to Thailand, Divine Mercy was there too.

April 12 , 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

Pornchai Moontri entered the Catholic faith on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010. To some who knew him, it was a most unlikely conversion story but it was a transformation in his very core. This story is my story as well. The Lord asked me to be an instrument in restoring life and hope to this prisoner even while in prison myself. Though Pornchai now lives on the far side of the world from me, he is still very much a part of my life and the life of this blog. His most recent post for these pages was the very moving “Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand.”

As most readers of this blog know, Pornchai (which in Thai means “Blessing”) was my roommate for 16 years in the draconian confines of this prison. Out of both necessity and deprivation, we became each other’s family. Pornchai was not just a transient along the twists and turns of my life. I learned over time that our paths crossed for a divinely inspired reason.

With new information, I won a reprieve for Pornchai who was released after 29 years in prison. I did my best to accompany and support him through a gruesome five-month ordeal in ICE detention at the height of a global pandemic. He finally emerged free in Bangkok, Thailand on February 24, 2021 with nothing but the clothes he was wearing. The life he vaguely remembered before he was taken as a child of eleven was gone. Because of the posts I wrote about us, a small group of devout Catholics who formed Divine Mercy Thailand recruited Father John Hung Le and Khun Chalathip, a benefactor of Father John’s refugee work, to give Pornchai shelter. Mary herself chose them for this task just as she chose me.

That is not an exaggeration. It might seem strange to someone not versed in Catholic spiritual life, but at some point I became aware that through the intercession of Saint Maximilian Kolbe in both our lives, The Immaculata involved herself in a special way in Pornchai’s life and well being. Then she involved me through intricately woven threads of actual grace over time.

In 2022, in “Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare,” I wrote of the compelling signs of Mary’s interventions in our lives. After Pornchai’s conversion to the Catholic faith, we took part in the “33 Days to Morning Glory” retreat written by Marian Fr. Michael Gaitley who would become a friend to us. Depicted atop this post, our Consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary took place in 2013 on the Solemnity of Christ the King.

I once mistakenly believed that this path was all about me and my priesthood in exile, but the truth was confirmed for me when Marian Helper magazine published “Mary Is at Work Here” in 2014. The article by Felix Carroll includes these startling paragraphs:

“The Marians believe that Mary chose this particular group to be the first [invited to Marian Consecration]. The reason eventually was revealed. It turned out that one of the participating inmates was Pornchai Moontri who was featured in last year’s Marian Press title, Loved, Lost, Found: 17 Divine Mercy Conversions. (See the Chapter entitled “Pornchai Moontri”) .

“Pornchai experienced a dramatic conversion in no small part due to a friendship formed with fellow inmate and cellmate Fr. Gordon MacRae who chronicles their lives in his celebrated website, Beyond These Stone Walls. Fr. Gordon joined Pornchai in the Consecration and called it 'a great spiritual gift.' It opened a door to the rebirth of trust during a dark time for both men. Great suffering requires great trust.”

— Marian Helper, Spring 2014

From Dante’s Inferno to Purgatorio

Many readers already know the most painful parts of this story. Pornchai and his brother, Priwan, were two and four years old respectively when they were abandoned in rural Thailand by a young mother desperate to find work to provide for them. She traveled to Bangkok where she fell under the control of an evil man. She was but a teenager. Nine years later, when her sons were ages 11 and 13 with no memory of her, they were taken from Thailand to the United States where they both became victims of sexual and physical violence.

Pornchai and Priwan became homeless adolescents fending for themselves in a foreign land in the mid-1980s, and they became separated. I and others investigated this story, wrote about it, and ultimately, with God’s grace, brought their abuser to justice. In September 2018, thirty years after his ruinous offenses, Richard Alan Bailey was convicted in Maine of 40 felony counts of child rape.

I discovered that at some point their mother learned the truth, but when she vowed to seek justice for her sons, she was murdered. This account is told in an article that may shake your faith in the justice system but strengthen your faith in Divine Providence. It is, “Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam.”

In the sixteen years in which Pornchai lived in a bunk just above me in the Concord, New Hampshire prison, the first few years were a bit rough. Looking back, Pornchai today says that the rough part was all him. He never set out to harm anyone, but in a Maine prison at age 18, facing a dark future alone, Pornchai vowed to never again become someone’s victim. He kept people away with a constant state of anger. As a result, he spent the next seven years alone with his raging thoughts in the cruel madness of solitary confinement.

When Pornchai could be held in solitary no longer, the State of Maine decided to just get rid of him. He was chained up in a van and taken to another prison in another state. He could have been taken anywhere, and he had no idea where he was going, but he landed just one state away in New Hampshire. He ended up in a familiar place solitary confinement.

When he emerged months later, Pornchai could have been sent to any of three New Hampshire prisons each with multiple housing units reflecting varying levels of security. By some mysterious grace, he was moved in with me. It was providential that just before his arrival in New Hampshire,The Wall Street Journal published its first articles about my plight. Somehow, Pornchai read them.

The context for this story is essential. Understandably, Pornchai trusted no one. Just imagine his inner struggle when he learned that he was now to live in a prison cell with a Catholic priest convicted of sexual abuse. Others told me to sleep with one eye open, but it did not take long for Pornchai to learn that I was not at all like the man who destroyed his life.

When I offered Mass in my cell late at night, it was Pornchai who was sleeping with one eye open. He watched me, and later he questioned me. When I told him about the Mass he asked if he could stay awake for it. I taught him to read the Mass readings and I explained the Eucharist along with a restriction that he cannot receive the Body of Christ unless he came to believe. Did he dare to believe in anything good in this world?

Pornchai and I lived in the same cell for two years before I began writing from prison. When we spoke about an invitation I received to write for this blog, I told Pornchai that it might somehow find its way around the world to Thailand. I did not actually believe that myself, but that is exactly what happened.

Here is Pornchai’s perspective on the first year of this blog given to me in a recent phone call to Thailand:

“When I was living in the bunk above Father G he would sometimes hand some typed pages up to me. Sometimes I thought they were interesting. Sometimes they kept me awake, and sometimes they just put me to sleep. But one time — I don’t remember the post — Father G included some paragraphs from the book, Dante’s Inferno. [It’s the first part of a three-part book, The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri in 1307]. When I read the passage, I thought, “This is the story of my life!” Father G found it and here it is:

“Midway on my life’s journey, I went astray from the straight path and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood. How shall I say what wood that was? I never saw so drear, so rank, so horrible a wilderness! Its very memory gives shape to fear. Death could scarce be more bitter. But since it came somehow to good, I will recount all that I found revealed there by God’s grace. How I came to it I cannot rightly say, so drugged and loose with sleep had I become when I first wandered from the True Way. But at the far end of that valley of evil, whose maze had sapped my heart with fear, I found myself upon a little hill, and there I lifted up my eyes...”

— Dante, The DivineComedy: Inferno, 1307

“Living with Father G., I thought I had finally left hell and now I was in Purgatory with him. I came to trust him. He was the only person in my life who always looked out for my best interest and never put his own first. So now I turn this story back over to Father G.”

From Dante’s Purgatorio to Paradiso

Learning from this blog about what we both faced in this prison without support or family, some readers came to our aid. Thanks to their modest gifts of support, we were suddenly eating a little better and were able to purchase things that made life here a little easier. The slow and tedious passage of time in prison sped up. I made a promise to Pornchai that he would never again be abandoned and stranded in life. I can only say that I am filled with gratitude, not only to our readers, but to God and our Mother Mary, the Immaculata, under whose mantle Saint Maximilian Kolbe led us both. He ratified a covenant with us when Pornchai was received into the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2010. There was now meaning in all the injustice I had endured.

I began to write posts that would reach around the world to navigate a path home for Pornchai. There were small miracles of connection, one after another, and the lights of Divine Mercy began to illuminate both of our exiled souls. This story was not without setbacks and challenges, however.

In 2017, Pornchai and I became separated. It came at a most stressful time just as we learned that Pornchai must be deported to Thailand immediately upon leaving prison. I knew that the few years we had left together were crucial for his well being. What happened next was a miracle. There is no other explanation for it.

On July 17, 2017, I was summoned from my work in the prison law library. I was handed a few plastic bags and was told that I have one hour to unravel my life from the 23 years I had spent in that punitive and confining building and move to another place. I asked that Pornchai also be called from his work to help me. I was shaken, and did not want him to return that day just to find me inexplicably gone. As Pornchai helped me pack, our despondence was like a dark cloud. Prison has no knowledge of Divine Mercy and places no value on human relationships.

An hour later, we wheeled a small cart out of that building, across the long walled prison yard, up a series of ramps, and then in between some other buildings to a housing unit called Medium South. I knew about it, but I had never before seen it. A gate in the high wall opened up, and in we went.

I felt like Dorothy Gale having just crashed in the Land of Oz after a tornado uprooted our lives. After 23 years locked in with no outside at all — 13 of them with Pornchai — this new place was built around a park-like setting with outside access nearly around the clock. And there were flowers! People I knew came running down to carry my things. I was led to the top floor from where I could see over the walls into forests and hills beyond.

Then came this wonderful scene’s collision with a broken heart. From there, I watched as Pornchai passed all alone back through that gate down below, possibly never to be seen again by me again. Friendship means nothing in prison bureaucracies. We were powerless to change this and I was powerless to decline this move. On the next day after a sleepless night, I learned that Pornchai was also moved — but somewhere else. Our faith was shaken and it began to crumble.

Pornchai was moved to another unit. We both knew that no one ever returns from there. Not ever! Over the next two weeks I prayed daily asking Saint Maximilian, our Patron Saint ,to bring this before the Heart of Mary for a word to her Son. Surely, she could undo this knot. After all, it was upon her word that He changed water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana (John 2:1-10).

On the following Sunday, Pornchai was able to attend a Catholic Mass in the prison chapel. We had only a minute to speak after Mass. I asked him to trust, and to hand this over to our Mother. Pornchai just nodded in silence. Then I picked up a Missalette and saw a prayer, the Memorare. I asked Pornchai to pray with me:

“Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, we fly unto you, O Virgin of Virgins, our Mother. To you do we come, before you we stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not our petition, but in your mercy, hear and answer us. Amen.”

Each day to follow was under a dark cloud. Three days later, on a Wednesday afternoon, I returned from my work in the prison law library. As the gate to Medium South slid open, another prisoner was waiting for me. I usually sit on a bench there for a few minutes before climbing up the 52 stairs to my cell, but the person standing there told me I was needed up there right away.

I arrived to find Pornchai unpacking and moving into the bunk above me where, just a few hours earlier, some other prisoner lived. The smile on Pornchai’s face told the story. “How did this happen?” I asked. Pornchai said, “I think you already know.” He had no explanation. He said he was suddenly called to an office and told to pack and move to Medium South, Pod 3-Bravo, Cell 4. He had no idea the address was mine until he got there and saw my possessions in the 60-square-foot cell.

We were able to spend the next three years becoming ready, and we were ready. Pornchai remained my roommate until September 8, 2020 when he was handed over to ICE for deportation to Thailand. There was another miracle yet to come, and I wrote of it in “For Pornchai Moontri, A Miracle Unfolds in Thailand.”

Epilogue : A Prodigal Son and His Older Brother

It has long been my mission in life to restore the life of another person stranded in the twists and turns of this story. After an absence of 38 years, Pornchai’s brother, Priwan has been saving and hoping to travel to Thailand. For the first time since they were taken away in 1985, he will be reunited with Pornchai in Thailand. Priwan’s flight departs Boston on Divine Mercy Sunday arriving in Bangkok on the day after.

Priwan cannot remain there, but he wants to restore his Thai citizenship and the identity that was taken from him as Pornchai had already begun to do. Priwan will spend a month with Pornchai, the first time they have been together since the tragedy of their lives separated them 38 years earlier. I have promised to help, and that is my other prayer.

Mary is still at work here, and I am still in her service.

+ + +

Left: Pornchai greets his brother Priwan in the company of Khun Chalathip, his Thai tutor, upon arrival at the Bangkok International Airport. Right: Having arrived with clothing from the state of Maine, Priwan needed to find something more suitable to Thai weather. It was 113℉ that day. (Photos by Father John Hung Le, SVD)

Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae:

Thank you for reading and sharing this Divine Mercy story. To help me in this Corporal Work of Mercy, or to support Beyond These Stone Walls, please see our “Contact and Support” page. You may also wish to read these related posts:

Divine Mercy in a Time of Spiritual Warfare

Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand

Loved, Lost, Found: The Chapter on “Pornchai Moontri”

For Pornchai Moontri, A Miracle Unfolds in Thailand

And you must not miss...

Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam

+ + +

And available until Pentecost:

A Personal Holy Week Retreat from Beyond These Stone Walls

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”