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.

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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.”

For this Prodigal Son, Homecoming Is a Work in Progress

Pornchai Moontri’s return to Thailand after 36 years has been that of a Prodigal Son traversing some dark rivers of the heart, but with help from an unexpected navigator.

September 7, 2022 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

“Sawasdee Kup, my friends. This is Pornchai writing from Bangkok, Thailand. I am very happy to see this post by Father G about my other spiritual father and patron saint, Maximilian Kolbe. He has been so much a part of my life in too many ways for me to describe. I think Father G summed it up well when he introduced this post today on Linkedin and Facebook. Here is how he described it:

"#Resistance This post reveals a little known mystical connection between St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. Pope John Paul II. Resistance to evil is never futile."

My birthday is coming up. (That is not a hint!) Some of my friends got me my first computer as an early birthday present. Remember that I was "down" for the entire computer age. So this is like an alien device to me. Yesterday I saw Beyond These Stone Walls here in Thailand on a full size computer screen for the very first time. It is awesome! And so are all of you.

With love and my prayers,

Pornchai Maximilian Moontri”

After I posted “A Tale of Two Priests: Maximilian Kolbe and John Paul II” a few weeks ago, the comment above was posted by our friend Pornchai Moontri writing from Bangkok, Thailand. A few readers subsequently sent messages asking for an update about Pornchai and his life there. I had already intended to write about this because his birthday is September 10, just a few days after this is posted. Pornchail will be 49 years old and is still struggling to regain the sense of home that was lost when he left Thailand 37 years ago in 1985.

This post will be followed in a week by one that has been a long time coming. I have been working on it for months, and I believe it is the most important post I have ever written. There are some who do not want me to write it, but, for reasons that may seem apparent here next week, I must. It is an Earth-shattering account for which Satan himself has lodged many obstacles in the path of its telling. They have mostly been overcome. I ask for your prayers as I complete that most important post this week.

By coincidence, I learned only after beginning today’s post that the Gospel for the Sunday Mass following its publication is the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). The word, “Prodigal” does not mean what some readers think it means. Its origin is in the Middle English “prodigalite” which comes from the Latin, “prodigere,” the original meaning of which is to drive away or squander. From the famous parable that Jesus told, it has also come to mean “reckless” or “wasteful,” neither of which I could ascribe to my own Prodigal Son, Pornchai Moontri.

But there was time in Pornchai’s life — a long time — when he felt compelled to drive away anyone and everyone who cared enough to enter it. This is the plight of so many who have been spiritually and emotionally wounded from a traumatic past. Pornchai tried to drive me away, too, but God had other plans and we both ended up following them. That story was told in this very same week one year ago, so I invite you to revisit it. If next week’s post is my most important, this one remains my own favorite. It is “The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner.”

Mary Calls in Reinforcements

I do not know whether I have the writing skills to adequately convey what Pornchai has been up against over the last 18 months. I have known and helped other prisoners who have faced deportation as adults to a home and country they had not seen since early childhood. Many simply do not survive. I had long been determined that Pornchai would not be one of those. Over time, by some mysterious grace, my writing made its way around the Globe to Thailand where people noticed and some support developed to assist Pornchai’s plight. He had no contact for 36 years with any of the extended family left behind when he was taken away at age eleven. He had only vague memories.

While he was still trapped in that grueling five months of post-prison ICE detention, my heart sank when I learned that the housing and support plan we had for him just fell apart in the eleventh hour due to illness. It was just weeks before Pornchai was to board a flight and I had no backup plan. Trying to put such things together from inside a prison cell half a world away is a daunting challenge.

I kept no secrets from Pornchai in this regard so I painfully remember hearing his own heart sink at the other end of the phone when I told him that the plan we had in place for him fell apart.

I remember trying to put the best spin I could on it. I asked him to trust. I said that often in my experience, such disappointments can become opportunities. Did I really believe that? I’m not sure, but I was sure of one thing: Pornchai would not believe it unless I did. So I did! In prayer, I turned this over to Mary, Undoer of Knots, my favorite from of Marian devotion and the most powerful. I asked her in an act of surrender to undo the knots of faithless distrust that held us bound.

Just two days later, in our daily ten-minute phone call while Pornchai was stranded in ICE waiting out a pandemic, I told him we had better news. I told him that Fr. John Hung Le, a Society of the Divine Word missionary priest from Vietnam, had been reading about us on Beyond These Stone Walls and sent me a message that he wants to help and would provide housing for Pornchai until we could find a better plan. Pornchai was dubious. “I don’t want to be a burden for anyone,” he said.

After Pornchai’s initial stay in required pandemic quarantine at a Bangkok hotel in February, 2021, Father John showed up with our Divine Mercy Thailand friend, Yela, and with Chalathip, Father John’s neighbor and a benefactor of his refugee project. Chalathip learned about Pornchai’s life from Yela and Fr. John, and she received an interior summons from Mary herself.

A retired teacher, Chalathip took on the task of helping Pornchai to assimilate in Thailand, a most difficult task after an absence consisting of his entire adult life since age eleven. Pornchai had to be tutored in conversational Thai, and quickly, but Chalathip knew this could not happen while Pornchai was living with four Vietnamese priests, none of whom spoke Thai.

So Chalathip spoke with Father John and decided to offer Pornchai a small apartment on the upper floor of her home just a few doors down the street from Father John’s. They spoke to me about this, but I was not going to second guess those with boots on the ground.

Chalathip owns several properties in Thailand, so in return Pornchai offered to help her manage them. Having become proficient in woodworking, Pornchai found that these skills translated easily into home repair. He dug up stumps, did landscaping, fixed leaky roofs, painted walls, sanded and restored furniture. Chalathip had two daughters. One had tragically died from an illness several years earlier and the other lived in the U.K. It did not take long for a strong maternal bond to form between her and Pornchai. This was literally divinely inspired. Chalathip never had a son, and Pornchai lost his Mother at a very early age.

Honor Thy Mother

Over recent months, Pornchai had enormous decisions to make. Chalathip had accompanied him and Father John on Pornchai’s first visit to the home and family from where he was taken at age eleven. It was in the village of Phuviang in Khon Kaen Province in the far northeast of Thailand — a nine-hour drive from Bangkok. I wrote about this hauntingly mysterious visit in “For Pornchai Moontri, a Miracle Unfolds in Thailand.”

In recent weeks, Pornchai had to return there to face a difficult decision. The half-completed home that his mother was building at the time of death in 2000, and the small amount of farmland around it, would have been taken from him unless he could come up with 80,000 Thai Baht in fees that had accumulated so he could effect a transfer of the house and land to his own name. Pornchai was frozen in place unable to decide what to do.

The amount seemed impossible for Pornchai, but in U.S. dollars, 80,000 is the equivalent of about $2,400. It just so happened that I had saved that amount in a just-in-case savings account. I did not want Pornchai to lose his mother’s home and land because it would have been gone forever. So I sent him what I had and he was able to complete the transfer. But the real Guardian Angel in this story was Chalathip. She went there with him, acting as a translator and trusted advisor pointing out options as Pornchai discerned under pressure what to do.

A kind reader has since returned my small investment to me. I am profoundly thankful, but most of all I am thankful for Chalathip. At every step of Pornchai’s long journey home, she has been a much needed teacher, guide, chauffeur and parent. She is near the age Pornchai’s Mother would be today had she lived, and I believe strongly that Chalathip, like me, was destined for this connection with Pornchai.

She returned with him to Phuviang four times in an effort to help him obtain his Thai ID for full citizenship. At some point I learned that after all my prayers to Mary Undoer of Knots, Chalathip was right there untangling all the complications that Pornchai faced in order to make Thailand his home again.

Father John and Chalathip have joined Pornchai in prayers at his Mother’s tomb at the Buddhist Temple cemetery nearby. Thailand is 99-percent Buddhist but there are many Catholic converts there and Catholicism has left a large footprint in Thailand. Chalathip, so very rare in Thailand, is Catholic since birth. Her deeply felt faith and fidelity to our Lord has bridged the chasm between hope and despair for Pornchai. He and I still speak every day, and I have recently detected that hope and some evidence of actual happiness in his voice knowing that he is not alone in his plight.

I detect it in my own voice as well of late. Night is often long and dark, but with the dawn comes — if not rejoicing, then at least a modicum of peace. It is what Jesus said would happen if we remain faithful. “Peace be with you.”

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Please join me here next week for the most important post I have ever written. It’s a matter of life and death!

And thank you for reading and sharing this post. Please “SUBSCRIBE” if you haven’t already. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

A Tale of Two Priests: Maximilian Kolbe and John Paul II

The Parable of a Priest and the Parable of a Prisoner

For Pornchai Moontri, A Miracle Unfolds in Thailand

Archangel Raphael on the Road with Pornchai Moontri

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Another note from Father Gordon: Our friends from Divine Mercy Thailand who sponsored Pornchai’s homecoming will be gathering with Father John’s community this week for a birthday celebration for Pornchai.

Also, Pornchai was recruited to teach an ocassional physical fitness class by the owner of MI Fitness in Pak Chong, Thailand. Mr. Mi (pronounced Mee) saw him working out at his gym and corralled him to teach a class. Mr. Mi and his wife created the poster below for their Facebook page and a short video of Pornchai’s first class. Just click on the poster to see the video.

Free at Last Thanks to God and You!

Left to right: Pornchai Moontri, Yela Smit, Father John Le, SVD, and behind them the one who brought them together.

The following is our first guest post by Pornchai Moontri in Thailand with a message of thanks and hope for our readers Beyond These Stone Walls.

Introduction by Father Gordon MacRae : I will be forever in debt to our readers who have opened their minds and hearts to the plight of my friend, Pornchai Max Moontri. The task now ahead of him is immense. It was an ordeal getting Pornchai out of prison. Now we face the task of getting prison out of Pornchai. He needs the help and prayers of all of us to conquer this adjustment.

If you have read Pornchai's traumatic history best captured in “Human Traffic: The ICE Deportation of Pornchai Moontri” — then you know that the last real home he knew was at age 11 before he was removed from Thailand. Fleeing from a nightmare existence in Bangor, Maine, he became a homeless teenager and then, at age 18, a prisoner.

For the last 29 years, his entire world consisted of a prison cell and a 300-yard walk to a woodshop where he became a proficient craftsman. Now he is dropped into the middle of Bangkok, Thailand. The adjustment ahead is immense.

Sensing his anxiety in a recent telephone conversation, I asked Pornchai what he is feeling and experiencing. What he said in response nearly brought me to tears. He said, “People have to understand that the only home I have ever had was in a prison cell with you.”

I choked on those words. In one sense, it is a testament to grace. Only Divine Mercy could make a prison cell feel like a home. But now Pornchai has the daunting challenge of leaving the traumas and trials of the past behind and living life in the light of Divine Mercy, a light that has captured him — has captured us both — in the great adventure of faith and hope.

I asked Pornchai to write candidly about this turning of the tide in his life. These are his words:

A Letter from Pornchai

To My Dear Friends Beyond These Stone Walls: I am at a loss for words, but I will try my best to tell you about where I am right now, and how I got here. A couple weeks ago, my friend, Father G, wrote about my return to Thailand after being away for 36 years. His Post was “Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom.” It made me laugh in parts, and it also made me cry.

Father G left something out. This is something that I told him about in a phone call right after my first night in hotel quarantine solitary confinement. I have to first say that it was a lot nicer than my last stay in solitary confinement which lasted seven long years. Then I was sent to another prison where I ended up in a cell with Father G.

Sixteen years have passed since then. The story of all that happened in those years is filled, as Father G says, with pain and suffering but also with triumph. He says that he feels sad about my leaving, but more than anything, he says he feels “triumphant.” I feel that too, but I also feel deep gratitude. Both of those are sort of new to me.

I told Father G last week that as I lay on my bed in my first night in Bangkok on February 9 after 30 years in prison and a 25-hour flight to Bangkok, I was exhausted in every way you could think of, but I could not sleep. I was overwhelmed with many emotions. All I could think about was where I would be right now if I never met Father G.

There were so many “what-ifs” raging through my mind that night. What if Father G had never been sent to prison? What if he took the easy way out with the plea deal they tried to con him into 27 years ago? We would have never met. What if I was sent to some other state besides New Hampshire? What if Father G and I never ended up in the same place? What if he never started writing to the world Beyond These Stone Walls? What if all of you never even heard of me? What if Father G had been a weaker man? What if he moved away after all my efforts to block anyone from ever entering my life? If any one of those things happened, I know today, I would be lost forever.

Every one of these questions, and many more were answered in advance by God. My head was spinning that night as I thought of all the times in the last 16 years when I was turning down one road only to find Father G pointing me toward another. Prison also brought many low points in our story that could fill these pages and depress anyone reading them. That is the nature of prison, and 30 years of it means 30 years of low points.

Prison is a humiliating, empty, meaningless existence, but Father G and I changed that. As I lay sleepless in bed pondering my freedom in my first night in Bangkok, only the high points filled my mind. There are so many of them, too many to tell you about in a single post. You already know about many of them, but I will try to tell you again about the ones that changed my life the most.

The Sacrifice of Fatherhood

I will always remember the first time I walked into Father G’s cell before we became roommates. The first thing I saw was the mirror. There was a strange card with a balding man dressed half as a priest and half as a prisoner. I asked Father G, “Is this you?” That’s when I was introduced to Saint Maximilian Kolbe who became the source of how we lived as prisoners.

When Father G and I became roommates, I was not able to trust anyone. My life’s experiences imposed that on me. I would always be in my upper bunk so I could see anyone coming in and could get to them before they got to me. Life in homelessness on the streets followed by life in prison does this to you.

Once a week, late on Sunday nights after all the prisoner counts and the lights went out, Father G had this weird ritual. I would pretend to be asleep and would watch with one eye open. What on Earth is this strange guy doing? In a corner of the concrete countertop in our cell, he would set up a little book light, some books, and put something around his neck. Then he would take a round piece of bread and a few drops of something and hold them up before eating them.

So one day I asked him about this and he said he was offering Mass. Why? I asked him. He said that it is the one time and place where Heaven touches us. I asked him if I could also do it and he said, “Only if you agree to be the lector.” So Father G told me all about the Mass and I would from then on stay awake to join him. I would do the Mass readings as well. Without my knowing it, profound changes began to take shape inside of me.

Also in 2007, I was visited by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement who told me that I would be having a court hearing that could end with my deportation to Thailand. I was summoned to a place where video hearings are held in the prison. A Judge Shapiro told me that I am ordered deported to Thailand at the end of my sentence. I had nothing in Thailand, and no one. As Father G once wrote, I had no future, no hope, and no God. There was only Father G who never wavered.

Beyond These Stone Walls

And there were times when we became separated. Prison is set up to always demonstrate that we are powerless over our lives. We were sometimes pawns in what Father G described as “spiritual warfare.” Sometimes the agendas of others were imposed on us. One time, some unknown prison official added a note to Father G’s file saying that he has a history of violence. It was not at all true, but the note sat there for six years before some official spotted it and decided I should be moved away from him.

Such things are never reversed in prison, but he asked me to trust in God. I was forced to live with a transgender man while some gangster with a real history of violence was moved in with Father G. I prayed. Within 24 hours, it was exposed as a big mistake and I was moved back with Father G. Every time this sort of thing happened, and we were separated, it was reversed in just a few days. I began to feel that we had an invisible shield around us. Father G told me that our Patron Saints are our allies in spiritual warfare. I went from doubting this to very much believing it. I saw this with my own eyes.

When I was told that I must be deported to Thailand at the end of my sentence, it was hard for me to find any hope. I told Father G that in my own mind I had what I called “Plan B.” I thought my only option was to make sure that I never left prison. It was all I knew and I could not imagine another existence. Father G asked me to set “Plan B” aside because another plan will come along to take its place. He said, “We will just have to build a bridge to Thailand.” “Yeah, Right!” I thought. How are we going to do this from inside a prison cell? “Get real!”

Then one day in summer of 2009, Father G came into our cell after talking with someone on the telephone. He told me that someone asked him to write on a weekly basis for a blog from prison. I was sent to prison in 1992 and Father G in 1994. Neither of us knew what a blog was. He said it would be a sort of prison journal and people around the world would read it.

Father G found a British poem that he liked called “Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make.” He said we need a name for this blog so I suggested “These Stone Walls” so that’s what we called it until I left in September. Then it became “Beyond These Stone Walls.” Father G would sit at his typewriter on a Saturday morning with no idea what to write, then he would type all afternoon and mail his posts to Father George David Byers for scanning.

We could never see the site, but we got a monthly report which was a total mystery to us. In the first month we had 40 readers. In the next month, four times that, then month after month it turned into many thousands in many countries. We could not figure this out. In my writing class, I wrote a poem about his constant “tap-tap-tap” in our cell every Saturday. Here it is:

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“My roommate is a rabid writer.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
He types until my mind winds tighter.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
He never has an unpublished thought.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
He types and types til my nerves are naught.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.

My roommate’s also a real good friend,
Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
And stays that way to the bitter end.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
And we all like the result, you see,
Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
Cuz some of what he types is ’bout me!”
TAP, tap. Tap, TAP, tap. Tap, TAP.”

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Our Summons to Divine Mercy

From here on, my life began to change with what I once thought was just my own hard work. Not so. Today I see a powerful grace at work in that cell. I did not have a name for it then, but I do now. It’s called Divine Mercy. I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

In the time to follow, I earned my high school diploma with top honors. Then I earned two continuing education diplomas from the Stratford Career Institute in psychology and social work, and excelled in theology courses from Catholic Distance University. I became proficient in woodworking and model shipbuilding. You can see some of my work at “Imprisoned by Walls, Set Free by Wood.”

I never had much in life to brag about except maybe for one thing. Despite all the darkness, when I finally saw some light I walked toward it. I decided to become Catholic. Father G never even mentioned this to me. It was just the sheer force of grace. To honor him, I chose his birthday (April 9) as the date for my conversion, but the prison chaplain, a Catholic deacon, asked me to postpone it until the next day. It was Divine Mercy Sunday, something that would become the very center of my life.

Everything changed. Marian Helper Editor Felix Carroll read our blog (yes, it’s now “our” blog!) and he contacted me for an interview. He included my conversion story in his now famous book, Loved, Lost, Found: 17 Divine Mercy Conversions. You can read the chapter about me at “Pornchai Moontri: Mercy Behind Those Stone Walls.”

The book made its way to Thailand, and now, so have I. The bridge that I once thought was impossible was built right before my very eyes. I thank you, my friends, for I would not be here without you. It was your reading and sharing these writings around the world that made this story possible. You have been the instruments of a miracle.

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A Post Script from Father Gordon MacRae: I have been able to talk with Pornchai daily since his arrival in Thailand. This has helped much to ease him into this new chapter in his story. It is an immense task to go from 30 years in prison to a foreign land.

I have deeply felt gratitude to Yela Smit, Co-Chair of Divine Mercy Thailand, and Father John Le, SVD, from the Society of the Divine Word. Father John and his community have offered sanctuary to Pornchai to help in this transition. It is a great gift to which I have pledged some monthly support. Want to help? See how at our SPECIAL EVENTS page.

You may also want to read and share the posts referenced herein:

Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam

Pornchai Moontri and the Long Road to Freedom

Imprisoned by Walls, Set Free by Wood

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