By Rita McInerney

Peter Kahi Nguyen's faith in God has never faltered. Through war, prison camp, escape from Vietnam it was his strength. He prayed daily to be reunited with his wife and children and his faith in their eventual reunion was supported by hard work.

His prayers were finally answered and a new life began for Peter when his wife, Mary, sons, Sylvester and Thomas, and daughter, Catherine, arrived at Hartsfield Airport July 24. The family had been separated eight years.

Celebrating their arrival with him were friends Peter had made since his own arrival in Atlanta April 23, 1985, two days after his 47th birthday.

But sorrow shadows family joy. Peter and Mary do not know the fate of another daughter Agatha, missing since 1987 when she tried to escape Vietnam by boat. Efforts by many to trace her have been fruitless.

Peter never gave up hope that his family would someday join him in Georgia. "If I don't have enough faith I will fail. I believe in God. I pray to him. Like a miracle, He answered."

He is a skilled craftsman, a trim carpenter who works as a sub-contractor finishing interior details in new homes. "For years I work alone, but now I have two sons to work with me," he is proud to say.

Now he has another enterprise which involves the entire family. They are working together at a workshop in Conyers, building cabinets and tables for a beauty supply company.

When everyone is busy at work, Peter says, "There is no time to be sad."

Mary, his wife since 1961, also keeps busy at the Conyers home Peter bought for his family. She enjoys working in the vegetable garden and sewing.

Peter is philosophical about the harshness of so much of his adult life. "I don't worry about the bad things that happened to me. When I was in prison, I kept believing," he recalled. "Happy are those who have strong faith." He came to Atlanta in 1985 under the sponsorship of World Relief Organization from a refugee camp near Singapore. Barbara Cokey, who represents the humanitarian group in Atlanta, first found him a job washing dishes at a Po Folks restaurant. Soon, because of his carpentry skills, she was able to put him to work as a house framer. In time, he acquired a van and the tools and went out on his own as a subcontractor.

Early on, Frank Caruso was having a house built for his parents in Conyers and noticed one worker wearing a Corpus Christi T-shirt. Curious, he asked about the shirt and Peter replied that it was his church. It was also the first parish the Carusos, now of St. Pius X, belonged to on coming to the Atlanta area.

The two men talked. Peter was invited to the Caruso home and found another supportive friend in Carol Caruso. He came to Thanksgiving dinner, bringing two other Vietnamese men with him. It was quite a gathering, Caruso recalled. Around the table were his Italian parents, his Polish in-laws, the three Vietnamese and the Caruso family.

"He couldn't believe there was so much food in the world, let alone in one family," Caruso said of Peter's astonishment at the Yankee feast.

The Carusos worked long and hard to reunite Peter and his family and to ease his entry into a strange environment. Frank Caruso has a bulging file of letters and telephone records to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, to Senators Sam Nunn and Wyche Fowler and to Rep. Ben Jones. The file mainly records attempts to get updates on the Nguyen family status after they applied to the Vietnam government's Orderly Departure Program four years ago.

"Once they get in the pipeline, they stay there," Caruso found of the frustrating process. "this was killing Peter."

Finally, about a year ago, the Nguyens were interviewed by U.S. State Department personnel and accepted for residency in the U.S. The Vietnam government gave its required consent and the final months of waiting began, to end happily July 24.

For the Carusos, "Peter has been a bright light, so full of faith." God always came first, Peter told them often. "I pray, my wife is praying. We'll get through somehow."

Another friend from the beginning, Pat Horvath, recalled giving Peter the T-shirt shortly after meeting him in Corpus Christi Church. Her husband, Jack, noticed him facing the altar and praying after Sunday Mass. "That man's from Vietnam," he commented, hurrying over to introduce himself. Jack Horvath served two tours of duty in Vietnam with the Army Transportation Corps.

Friendship flourished from that meeting. The Horvaths drove him to church each Sunday, took him it INS to get his immigration number, accompanied him when he took his driver's test in Jack's stick shift and loaned him money to buy his first car.

The Horvaths were among welcoming friends at the airport and at the celebration the Carusos gave for the family at St. Pius a few weeks after the arrival. The honored guests came bearing gifts, flowers and a lustrous mother of pearl image of the Blessed Mother on an ebony base for Father John Walsh, pastor.

Peter entered the seminary in Kon Tu at 14 years of age and remained until 1961. There he completed three years of college. From 1961 until 1965 he taught literature and French at the high school level. He was fluent in French from childhood and learned Latin in his seminary years.

He entered military school in 1965 and served in the Army until the South Vietnamese government fell in 1975. A captain at the tragic end, he had served at Kon Tum in the central highlands as coordinator at a development and pacification center. At war's end he was sent with other officers to a re-education camp deep in the jungle.

His seven years as prisoner were harsh. He toiled in the rice fields and learned carpentry, believing that "through the will of God, good things would come" if he developed such a skill.

Two years after returning to his family in 1982, desperately seeking more than the uncertainties of life in a communist regime, he escaped. With about 100 others, he crowded a sailboat about 30 feet long and 10 feet wide. One passenger, 16, died at sea. With favorable winds, the boat reached its destination, a navy base in Indonesia, after several days. Here the Vietnamese were accepted as refugees and transferred to the Galan refugee camp near Singapore. Once there, Peter applied to come to the U.S.

While Peter was trying to get his family in to the U.S., he and the Carusos co-sponsored other newly arrived Vietnamese. Peter also sponsored several on his own.

Peter has grown to love the Conyers area. It reminds him of his childhood in Kon Tu city, but he became a U.S. citizen in 1991 and new regards the U.S. as home. He is working to bring his other son, Paul, Paul's wife and child to his new country. His 80-year-old mother, he says, wouldn't be happy in a strange land. She is content to remain in Vietnam with several of Peter's brothers and sisters.

He is also hoping to bring a nephew, ordained a priest in May at a refugee camp in Malaysia, to this country. The bishop of Kuala Lumpur came to the camp to confer Holy Orders. Peter was pleased to receive an invitation to the ceremony. But it was a trip he was unable to make.