Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Piya Thonprasertserre (left), brother of Red Jasmine owner Phasook "Noot" Lenoel (right), has arrived from Thailand to help his sister with her Vinton business. Noot made her customers wait for her cherished Thai dumplings until her brother arrived.

Piya Thonprasertserre helps get rid of some weeds behind the Red Jasmine restaurant in Vinton, with Noot's "American parents," Fran and Clyde Deeds.

Piya Thonprasertserre (back left) and his wife Ek Sim Thonprasertserre (front right) spent 13 years trying to immigrate to the United States from Thailand. Piya is the brother of Phasook "Noot" Lenoel (left front), owner of the Red Jasmine Thai restaurant in Vinton. Her brother-in-law, Praphan Kwanmuang (top right), is the cook.

After thousands of dollars and untold phone calls and nearly a dozen bus trips to the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, the customers of a Vinton restaurateur are about to get what they have been clamoring for all along: The Red Jasmine's specialty appetizer, Thai dumplings.

The 13-year journey of Piya and Ek Sim Thonprasertserre to immigrate to the United States so they could work in Phasook "Noot" Lenoel's South Pollard Street restaurant finally ended June 22, with two extremely tired Thai natives arriving in Washington, D.C., from their very first airplane trip.

Regular customer Fran Deeds, a retired Roanoke County schoolteacher who took on Noot's family immigration effort as a personal battle, was there with Noot to greet them.

Before their trip, Deeds had even thought to send the pair notes to carry with them on their journey: "I don't speak English, but I need to get to --" the next leg of their flight.

The notes got the pair from Bangkok to Seoul and, 20 hours after their journey began, to the United States. The couple wore yellow T-shirts so they'd be easily recognizable in the D.C. airport.

"I still don't believe they're here," Noot said recently as her brother and sister-in-law, still weary from the trip, stood nearby in the restaurant. "Even their friends in Thailand don't really believe they're here now."

The Bangkok embassy required Noot's brother and sister-in-law to go through six interviews, each time requiring a new set of documents or paperwork that had to be garnered before the visa could be approved.

DNA tests were required, as were records of transcontinental phone conversations and family photographs -- all to make sure they weren't faking their relationship. Because of a prevalence of immigration fraud in Southeast Asia, embassy officials are often suspicious.

Meanwhile, with her staffing down and unable to lure other Thai cooks to work in her Vinton restaurant, Noot made her customers wait for the cherished but labor-intensive Thai dumplings until her brother arrived to help prepare them.

That hadn't happened yet as of late last week because, Noot said, "My brother and sister-in-law are old and they are still tired from the trip. I say to people, 'Give them some time!' "

The couple, in their late 50s, are still getting used to the foreignness of Southwest Virginia.

"My brother goes out and stands at the intersection of Washington and Pollard and watches the traffic. He says, 'Boy, I don't think I will be able to drive in this country.' "

They're homesick, too.

After they get their green cards, Noot said, the family hopes to build up the restaurant business and save up for their retirement, at which time they'll all return to Thailand.

"It's hard work living here," said Noot, 50, an American citizen who emigrated from Thailand 26 years ago and has run restaurants in Boston and Burlington, Vt., before moving to Vinton two years ago. "You have to keep on always working, working, working here.

"But when we go, I'm going to take 'Mom' with me," she said, referring to Deeds, whose stained-glass creations now adorn most of the Red Jasmine's windows.

Not long ago, the place was so crowded that Noot even put Deeds to work as a server.

"I get no tips -- she just feeds me," Deeds said, chuckling.