Bryan Nurnberger finally made it to Casa Hogar. Unfortunately, he can’t say the same for his gift-filled school bus.
Three months after the missionary departed his native Naugatuck for the needy orphanage in Central Mexico, Nurnberger finally arrived at Casa Hogar on Tuesday bearing toys aboard the orphanage’s van.
The toys were only a tiny portion of the supplies and gifts – including 80 hand-sewn quilts individualized for each orphan – Nurnberger had loaded onto a big yellow school bus in Naugatuck. Like its cargo, which includes medical supplies, the bus will be donated to the orphanage in Oaxaca.
Nurnberger and his friend, Jennifer DeBisschop, left Connecticut aboard the bus in July. But when they arrived in Seguin, Texas, they discovered the Mexican government wasn’t satisfied with their paperwork. So they were forced to sit and wait, and wait, while orphanage officials pleaded their case in Mexico City.
DeBisschop eventually returned to Connecticut, never having set foot across the border. But Nurnberger was determined to see the paper pushing battle through to its successful conclusion.
“All I know is that this will happen, and to quit is not one the options,” he wrote in a posting to the web site run by his organization, Simply Smiles.
Last week, after three months and one week of wading through the administrative morass at the border, his patience and determination paid off. Sort of.
The bus, with the bulk of its contents, is still parked in Texas while the hundre-page application winds its way toward approval by the Mexican government. But Nurnberger decided to pack up the toys, cross the border and go to the orphanage while awaiting the final OK to bring in the rest of the items.
Though it will mean traveling 1,000 miles back through Mexico to retrieve the bus once the application is approved, and then making the return trip, Nurnberger believes it’s worth it.
“We just might be the first people to ever do this honestly and through all of the right channels,” he said, half joking in a recent Web posting. “…Our situation is so different from all the people we have talked to here that are helping missions across the border, simply because Oaxaca is so deep into Mexico. …Without all the permits, it would be impossible to make it the 1,000 miles without being intercepted by the authorities.
“If not for anything else, this extreme difficulty in aiding Casa Hogar (due to its location) is enough to show how much they need our help,” Nurnberger wrote. “Oaxaca and its neighbor, Chiapas, are the poorest states in Mexico. They are remote, mountainous and in desperate need of aid. People are amazed that we are going so far when there are so may needs accessible right across the border. … Those ‘border needs’ are surely blessed by all who support them, but our hearts lie in Oaxaca.”
If there ere any doubts about that, the reaction of the orphanage’s children to Nurnberger’s arrival dispelled them. After avoiding “the cows, burros, horses, dogs, people, soldiers, and everything else that was in the road on the way down here,” repairing a shredded tire, and getting through two checkpoints – including one manned by “18 year olds with machine guns” – the van arrived at Casa Hogar.
What happened next left the usually chatty Nurnberger almost speechless.
“There are moments of perfection,” he wrote.
“What I think is important is realizing them, and remembering not only the moment, but those things and people that allowed that piece of perfection to be lived.
