Redeem The Dream (eBook)

Chapter One:
Not So Welcome

“I am not your mom...finding a home is something you will have to do on your own.” This was not what I expected to hear two weeks before taking a one-way flight from Düsseldorf, Germany to Portland, Oregon. Rob and I met the previous summer in 1996, when I had the opportunity to play on a basketball tour team comprised of youth players from Germany as well as war-torn Croatia. We traveled to Oregon and California where we scrimmaged school teams. Beyond that we took part in two week long camps. Rob directed the Larry Steel Basketball Camp at the time. He was one of six coaches I connected with that summer. When I returned home, I wrote each of these guys a handwritten letter asking them to help me move to the United States. My plan was to finish my junior and senior year of high school in America to set myself up for a chance to play college basketball. Ironically, the only one who took the time to write back was Rob. We stayed in touch every few weeks during my tenth-grade school year that followed.

With each conversation he assured me of his promise to locate a high school for me to attend, as well as an appropriate living situation. From what I can recall, Rob only spoke to my mother once very briefly when I handed the phone to her during one of our talks. This was several months prior to my move to the United States. Now, over twenty-three years removed, the only explanation I can come up with for him turning his back on me when push came to shove was that he never thought I was going to follow through on my plan. We spent hours discussing my move to Oregon, but it apparently was nothing but a game to him.

“UHHM...Okay. Well, do you at least know of someone that I may be able to stay with, because I am moving to America regardless” was the best response I could conjure up as anxiety and doubt began to rise within me. Only a few weeks before, during our last conversation, Rob challenged me to buy my plane ticket and he would take care of the rest, meaning secure a living situation for me. As fate would have it, my bicycle was stolen, and I got some insurance money from it. With the help of this little bit of extra cash, I found a youth-reduced, one-way ticket from Düsseldorf, Germany to Portland, Oregon with Turkish Airways for around 300 bucks. Excited to share the great news with Rob, I reached out with the trip itinerary. His backing out from his promise of such magnitude was certainly the last thing I saw coming.

“There is a lady I work with who is married. That could be a good situation. She might be willing to help you out.”

“Okay, what is her number?” Rob threw me a bone by giving me her phone number, after which we ended our call. Without hesitation I dialed her up. Being sixteen years old I couldn’t begin to appreciate what a ridiculous cold call this was. Here I am, a teenager calling a random lady on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean whom I have never met, know nothing about, and who has no idea who I am, with a request to move in with her family...in two weeks.

“Hello, my name is Danny Marsden; I got your information from your coworker, Rob. I am a sixteen-year-old teenager from Germany, and I am moving to Portland on my own with no family in two weeks. Can I live with you?”

“Ahhh...what?”

I began to explain the totality of my circumstances. She must have felt some sort of compassion toward me.

“We will pick you up from the airport. You can crash on our couch for a few months. That will give us some time to figure out what the heck is going on here and allow us to help you find a more permanent situation.”

Relieved, I gave her my flight information. “Do you want me to call you again a few days prior to my trip, so you won’t forget that I am coming?”

“Oh no, save your money. I promise to be there for you to pick you up. We will not forget.”

As far as I was concerned, that call could not have gone any better! Surely, this lady meant every word she said. The day of my big trip finally came as mom, together with one of her friends, took me to the airport. Both were still somewhat in disbelief. About a year prior, when I returned home from that basketball tour to the West Coast, I told my mother I would move to the United States on my own permanently within a year. A bold statement to make when you are fifteen years old.

“If you can make it happen, I won’t hold you back,” she replied. You might wonder why I didn’t stay in Germany? Would life have been much easier that way? Less hardship? More security? The answer is yes. Things would have been much simpler for me. And if I didn’t have such a fractured relationship with my mother mainly due to her mental health challenges, which made living under the same roof nearly impossible, I probably would have stayed. Secondly, it was my dream to come to America on my own and either make it or die trying. So please don’t feel sorry for me. I chose this. Instead, I invite you to celebrate with me that despite every challenge, God has worked all things out for the good.

So here I was, with two bags of clothes, a few hundred bucks, which wasn’t nearly enough for a return ticket to Germany, in case I decided to tap out once I made it over there and things went south. However, giving up would never be an option, so it didn’t seem unreasonable to burn that bridge.

A few extended layovers made for a long journey. From when I left our apartment in Northern Germany until I landed in Portland, twenty-seven hours passed. While on the last leg of the trip a nice lady sat next to me who took an interest in my story. She was rather amazed how a kid from Germany would move across the world alone and not really knowing what would happen once the wheels hit the ground in Oregon. At that moment I was still fully confident to be welcomed by the family I met via my rather interesting cold call two weeks ago. Turns out my new travel buddy had excellent intuition when she wasn’t so sure my arrangement could be trusted. It was past ten p.m. when I finally got my luggage from baggage claim and kept an eye out for my new host family. Kind of hard to do when I had never seen a picture of them or asked them what they looked like. Maybe I could find someone holding a sign with my name on it? After two hours had passed and still nobody showed up, anxiety began to build. I looked everywhere, even stepped outside several times where other happy travelers were picked up by friends and family. Those big city lights reminded me that this was real. I moved to America with a one-way ticket and was left at the airport. In other words, I had no idea where I would spend my first night here. What now? The next thirty minutes all I could do was pace back and forth while intensely crying out to God for help, cursing up a storm, back to prayer, back to cursing. Completely overwhelmed, I found a chair to sink in. More waiting. As time passed some airport personnel noticed how long I had been there on my own. “Where is your family?” a woman asked.

“I don’t know. I am on my own.”

“Where are you supposed to be? Who is supposed to pick you up?”

“I have been left here and I have no one.”

“Wow. Well, would you like a calling card?”

“Yes, please.”

With my calling card in hand, I approached the nearest pay phone. My first call was to the lady that promised to pick me up. Of course, nobody answered that one. Next, I called Rob, who really was to blame for this whole mess. Not surprisingly, he didn’t pick up the phone either. I kept calling both numbers over and over. Finally, someone picked up Rob’s phone. It was his girlfriend, who he had been living with. As it turns out, she had no idea who I was. I spent an entire year speaking to her boyfriend Rob about moving to the United States, yet he never even told her who I was. What a joke.

“You are who? From where? Germany?!? You are how old? Rob promised you what? You are at the airport now??”

Her questions kept rolling. She was in complete shock. Thankfully, she knew of the lady who was supposed to pick me up and offered to reach out to her on my behalf, to see what was going on. “Call me back in about twenty minutes. By then I should have gotten ahold of her.”

When I jumped back on the pay phone at the appointed time, my nightmare was officially confirmed. “I was able to get a hold of her. She said that they were not expecting you.”

What? Are you kidding me? This lady who seemed to so empathetic to my situation days prior during our phone call, straight up ditched me? To this day, I can still hear her voice in my head: “We will be there for you. We will pick you up, and you can stay with us for at least the first few months.”

Abandonment issues have already been a struggle because my father left my mom and sister high and dry before I was born. But at this moment in time, that inner scar increased exponentially. What adult in their right mind could make such a promise to a vulnerable teenager and then turn their back in cold blood with no regard for their life? An hour-and- a-half later Rob’s girlfriend came, picked me up and drove me to what I remember to be some type of industrial area. She explained there will be a black SUV pulling up in a few minutes. When that happened, I was to get out of her car and into the SUV. “He will take you to where you need to go.” I had no idea what she meant by that or “where I needed to go,” but okay, I would go along with it. At that point I was too tired to care either way. Ironically, she arranged for this mystery vehicle to take...