Bendu and Isatta are Li- berians, students at Ricks Institute, a school that once prepared the children of wealthy families to further their education overseas. But in the wake of two civil wars since 1989, the school has spent most of its time and resources on reconstructing walls, programs and hope. The school is in Virginia, a community not far from Liberia’s capital of Monrovia. Last year, Ricks and Brookstone School, here in Columbus, found each other and began building a partnership. Bendu and Isatta were hand-selected for the first international exchange.

They arrived in August at Hartsfield International Airport with small carry-on bags, filled mostly with gifts for their host families. They stopped at a Target store in Newnan to buy pajamas for their first night 6,000 miles from home.

“These girls have never seen a dishwasher, washer and dryer, an escalator, a parking lot full of cars,” said Cindy Sparks, head of Brookstone’s servant leadership program. “We could go on and on about all the firsts.”

Host mom Tammy Gorum painted a vivid picture of the girls’ naïveté. She and Isatta were standing outside, gazing into the sky. Isatta asked her, “Where are the tracks?”

“Tracks? What tracks?” Tammy replied.

“The tracks the planes ride on.”

Tammy took Isatta inside straight to the computer for her first lesson in aviation.

Every day was a learning experience. Milk was new to them because there was no refrigeration in their country to keep it fresh. A bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and milk became a fast favorite. As did sweets, although the taste was offensive to them when they first arrived. Their diets in Liberia consist mainly of rice and a common starchy vegetable. While their first sandwiches here were just meat and bread, by the time they left, they were hoping they’d find a Chick-Fil-A in the Brussels airport.

Host dad Dr. Mike Gorum asked Isatta how they cook different things in Liberia. Isatta answered, “First, you build a fire.” One day, as a bag of popcorn started jumping in the microwave, Isatta worried that the house would burn down. Mike assured her it wouldn’t and asked her how they make popcorn in her country. “First, you build a fire…,” Isatta replied.

The girls’ Brookstone friends and host families tried to expose them to as much as they could during their visit. There was ice skating, boating, a trip to New York City (where the wax museum was the highlight!), a limousine ride, even driving a car.

Mike let them drive around the school’s parking lot. “Don’t ever let Bendu drive again!” he warned with a laugh. “She was awful! She just didn’t get the concept of having to make the car go where she wanted it to.”

Surprisingly, all these new experiences came rather easily to the girls. “They are remarkably mature,” Tammy Gorum said. “They were worldly, as strange as that sounds. There’s a kind of confidence that comes from all they’ve been through.”

“They don’t sweat the small stuff,” Mike added.

Torn Nation, Shattered Hope
The Rev. Olu Menjay runs Ricks Institute. He fled Liberia as two civil wars from 1989 to 2003 killed 250,000 people and devastated the country’s economy. He attended Truett-McConnell College, a Baptist College in Cleveland, Ga., and Boston University, and became a Baptist minister. When he returned to his country three years ago, he found Ricks in ruin. There were no windows, dormitories were empty shells and thousands of refugees were living in deserted classroom buildings. At times, rebels and government troops used the 1,000-acre campus as a battleground.
Five years later, Liberians are still struggling to survive the wars. The average Liberian lives on 30 cents a day; the world poverty line is one dollar a day. Half of the country’s children do not attend school.

Despite his discouragement, Menjay began raising money to rebuild Ricks. He found support in Baptist churches back in the United States, including First Baptist Church in Columbus, where he’d built a relationship during his stay here in 2006. Now Ricks is the first school in Liberia to offer free primary school through the sponsorship of students. Nearly 100 sponsorships come from First Baptist.

The school’s infrastructure is slowly being repaired. Just this month, solar panels were installed to allow for full-time, affordable electricity. Prior to that, the electricity could be used only for three hours at night so that boarding students could study and prepare food for dinner.

Scott Wilson, the headmaster at Brookstone School, went to Liberia to meet Menjay and to see the situation for himself. “We can’t imagine the suffering they’ve been through,” he said. “The country has been decimated in every way. There’s one young man, 21 years old, now in 7th grade because for the many years the country was at war; there was no school.”

As the two men talked, Menjay imagined the impact a partnership would have on his students. “This provides a sense of appreciation and a sense of hope for kids who have experienced nothing but violence all their lives,” he said.

The partnership between Brookstone and Ricks began as a pen pal program for sixth graders. But mailing letters was difficult because there is no postal service in the community where the school is located. Last fall, Brookstone students sent shoe boxes full of school supplies. As Brookstone completed a new building on its campus, it sent hundreds of leftover desks to Ricks.

?Until Brookstone began sending books, the faculty at Ricks relied on lecture and rote memory to teach the students. Even paper was in very limited supply. Sparks remembers watching the two Liberian students do their homework. “They used every square inch of both sides of the paper,” she said. “They couldn’t understand what seemed to be wastefulness on our part. They had to do a math project where they made...

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