Imprisoned by Walls, Set Free by Wood — by Pornchai Moontri
Pornchai Maximilian Moontri takes us behind These Stone Walls where he is the safety trainer for a captive audience producing some woodcraft marvelous to behold.
“I will stand on my watch, take up my station at the post, and wait to see what He will say to me… For the stones shall cry out from these walls and the woodwork shall answer.”
A lot has been happening here behind these stone walls. My friend, Father G has just started a new job as the one and only law library clerk serving 1,500 men in this prison. Every prison has to have a law library and a full-time clerk. So when the job came open he was asked if he would take it. It’s a real challenge for him because he took it on suddenly, and all his training is “on-the-job” training.
And his new job came with a pay raise. His pay jumped from $2.00 per day to $2.15 per day. We have been trying to figure out how he will spend that extra 75¢ cents per week. I earn the same pay he does, but prison work for both of us is not about how much we can make, but rather how many we can help.
So Father G spends his days behind a desk now, helping prisoners to complete and file hundreds of complicated state and federal legal forms for everything from legal motions, to medical planning, to power of attorney forms, legal medical releases, divorce petitions, and applications for drug court and addictions treatment. Father G eventually connects with just about everyone in this prison in the most difficult times of their lives.
He just finished his third week there and is still finding his way. This is why he asked me to write this guest post. We both work Monday through Friday from 07:00 AM until 2:30 PM, so now all the TSW posts have to be typed in our cell on Saturday. Well, Father G can type one on a Saturday. This one took me a week, one page at a time. People here ask me if the constant “tap-tap-tap” of the typewriter every Saturday drives me crazy, but for me it is like music. It is our connection with you.
I also have a job that I like very much. I have been working on my own projects in the woodworking shop that is part of the “HobbyCraft” project here. Last year I also became the Safety Trainer. I teach new workers in the woodworking shop how to use all the equipment, and how to map out their projects to order the wood that they will need.
Prisoners in the wood shop purchase their own lumber from a local vendor, and then I show them how to use a Radial Arm Saw to cut the rough lumber. I also train them on using the planers, chop saw, table saws, band saws, routers, shapers, and the lathes which are in three sizes for woodturning projects.
I also save to purchase wood for my own projects. Most of the items I have created in recent years are smaller items such as keepsake boxes, a Divine Mercy box, mantle clocks, and wood-turned pen sets made from olive wood imported from the Holy Land.
Lots of the items I have made are featured on a Pinterest board called “Woodworking and Model Shipbuilding by Pornchai Maximilian Moontri.” Below is the most recent keepsake box that I designed and crafted from mahogany with a basswood inlay in the top engraved with a wood burned image of the Praying Hands. The inside is finished with velour.
I have lately been working on some larger furniture projects.
The photo at the top of this post is me with a round dining table that I designed and created. It is solid maple, 48-inches in diameter and 32-inches in height. Below is another photo of the same table emphasizing the legs which are also solid maple wood-turned with a lathe. I have just been asked to custom build a slightly smaller version of the same table.
The table below is called a sofa table. It is made from solid cortisone oak and the legs are made from cherry. It is 30-inches high and 36-inches in length.
The cabinet below was custom-made to requested specifications. It is made from cherry with raised panel doors. It is 48-inches high.
But as wonderful as it is to work with wood, none of this is the wood that sets me free. That comes Holy Week. Behold the wood of the Cross on which hung the Salvation of the world.
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Please share this post on Facebook and other social media. The story of Pornchai Moontri is an epic of immense importance for the cause of social justice and for the Church. As Catholics consider leaving their faith over the abuse scandal, Pornchai found the only healing and hope he has ever known in the Catholic Church.
A ship designed and built by Pornchai Moontri for a special order.
