Vietnamese father meets LI mother who raised his kids

Continents apart, they each took a leap of faith.

A father set his children adrift in boats in the hope they would escape the chaos that followed the fall of Saigon in 1975.

A mother took two - and later a third - of those children into her family's Long Island home.

On Sunday, 30 years and two generations later, they met for the first time.

"Look," the mother, Camille Miceli-Noren, now 67 announced to their extended family as the father, Thinh Voung, now 78, walked into the backyard of her Bethpage home. "It's Grandma and Grandpa, together for the first time."

Three decades ago, Miceli-Noren and her husband, Peter - who have since divorced - became the foster parents to two of Voung's nine children: Thap and Tuyen. Later the couple would also take in the boys' sister, Quan. These children were among the "boat people" who fled Vietnam.

Voung was making his first-ever visit to the United States to see six of the nine children he had put onto rickety, crowded boats with the hope that they would be saved. He also wanted, finally, to meet Miceli-Noren, who raised his three children with four of her own, daughters Michelle, Dawn and Stacey and a son, Shawn.

"He wanted to come so that he could see her, so that he could thank her," said Quan Voung-Chieffo, of Northport, now 43.

Voung, who does not speak English, presented Miceli-Noren with a gift of cookies. Earlier, for her birthday, he'd sent from Vietnam a 2-foot-by-3-foot plaque of a photograph of the extended Noren-Voung family. "They had to buy a special suitcase for it," Miceli-Noren said, laughing.

Voung will be in the United States until November to visit with six of his children. He's also going to Canada, where three other children now live.

"He wants to spend time with each of his children in their homes," said Thap Voung, 45, of Brentwood, who, along with his sister helped with translation. "He is happy that we are all doing well."

So far, Voung's been spoiled. "I cook what he likes, what he is used to," said Voung-Chieffo. On Sunday, however, members of the extended family cooked. Lasagna. Sausage and peppers. Enough to serve the 30 family members she was expecting.

Voung-Chieffo, who, along with her brothers, has visited her mother and father in Vietnam, said that her father lives in a suburban area. But suburban Long Island surprised him, said his daughter. "He was asking, "Why are the houses so low?" she said. "Where he lives, the houses are two or three stories. Wait until he really sees Manhattan."

Voung was also surprised by how much everything costs. "He was surprised that we pay people a lot of money to come and cut down trees," his daughter said. "He said that in Vietnam, if a tree has to come down, they sell the wood because it can be used to make paper and many other things."

Miceli-Noren said that there will come a time when she sits down with Voung for a long talk. She wants to know everything about his, about their, children. About when they were babies. About his decision to send them off into the ocean.

"I'm so thankful looking at him and so, I don't know, so many emotions," she said. "He and his wife had so many, many incredible children. Three of them became my children."

Thap Voung said that his parents - his father, and his mother, Trieu Mieu - didn't worry about arranging for his own children to flee their homeland. "He said he put us into God's hands," he said. "He had faith we would be all right."

Later, Miceli-Noren would voice similar words.

"It's like we both took a leap of faith," she said, watching as Voung watched the extended family they both now shared. "With everything going on around him back then, and he was able to take a leap of faith that his children would be all right," she said. "We took a leap of faith, too, and look. It worked out great for both of us."