Nicholas Bunkerd Kitbamrung Catholic Church

Missionary Works (Khao Yai)

He received his ordination to the priesthood on 24 January 1926 in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Bangkok from Bishop René-Marie-Joseph Perros. His first assignment following his ordination was to work as an assistant pastor at Bang Nok Kheuk (Bang Nok Khwaek) parish in the Samut Songkhram province alongside Father Durand (parish priest of the Bang Nokkhuek church (now the Nativity of Our Lady Cathedral)).[3][1] In 1928 he was transferred to Phitsanulok where he taught the Thai language to Salesian priests while teaching catechesis to their sixteen seminarians. It was at this time that he learnt the Chinese dialect Hakka himself.[3][5][7]

Kitbamarung assisted the Salesians after their arrival on 26 October 1927 in Thailand in Siam. On 1 January 1928 the mission that Durand and Kitbamrung led had ended after the parish and its work was entrusted to the now-trained Salesians. In light of this he was appointed as the associate pastor to the French priest Mirabel in 1929 who had just arrived in Thailand himself.[7][6][1] In 1930 Mirabel expanded his work to northern Siam and asked Bishop Perros to send a priest as his replacement since he wanted Kitbamrung to work with him up north. The two began in Lampang but Mirabel had a change of heart and wanted Kitbamrung to work there while Mirabel travelled further north. It was there he continued to evangelize and he even helped out his fellow priests with their financial debts.[6][2]

In 1930 he was sent to northern Vietnam to work in the missions there and then did the same thing later in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand where he was to help lapsed Catholics and to re-evangelize the region.[3] He was then sent to the Khorat district to engage further in catechesis and evangelization while he himself evangelized almost unexplored lands along the Laos border in 1937.[7]