A Life of Courage, Hope and Providence
It is a long way from the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, in West Africa to Mercer University’s campus on the southern edge of downtown Macon. On the wing of a commercial airliner the distance is about12,000 miles, including a stop in Europe. On the wing and a prayer of a teenaged refugee from the beginnings of a brutal civil war the distance is immeasurable.
It is a long way, too, from downtown Boston back to the outskirts of Monrovia to the campus of a once-prestigious boarding school, now ravaged by a brutal civil war that dragged on for 14 years. On the wing of a commercial airliner the distance remains about 12,000 miles. On the wing and a prayer of a courageous thirtysomething who spent fifteen years exiled from his homeland, the distance is unfathomable.
The story of Olu Quaity Menjay '95 is a story of courage, hope, persistence and providence. Born in 1972, one of five children that blessed the union of a Baptist minister and school teacher and his wife, Olu Menjay grew up in the afterglow of the glory days of Liberia. William V.S. Tubman’s 27-year presidency ended the year before Olu was born. Tubman was succeeded by William R. Tolbert, an international Baptist statesman and influential Liberian politician.
Tubman’s Liberia was hobbled by a burgeoning system of patronage that created unrest in the country. World politics had become suspicious as the Cold War advanced. Tolbert assumed the Liberian presidency in dire days that only got worse.
In 1980 the simmering pot of Liberian politics boiled over. Tolbert was assassinated on April 12. Liberia began a long and painful slide into disarray followed by the mire of 14 years of civil war. Samuel Doe, Tolbert’s assassin, ruled Liberia until his own murder on September 9, 1990. At the time of Doe’s death, the Liberian civil war already was in full throat, crying out for diplomatic, military and humanitarian assistance from the global community.
Officially the Liberian civil war began on Christmas Eve 1989 when Charles Taylor and his rebels launched an assault upon Liberia from Côte d’Ivoire. Although Charles Taylor assumed the presidency of Liberia in 1997 and held that position until 2003, the civil war continued throughout the Taylor administration. Fourteen years of war, destruction and fear postponed hope for a people with a rich heritage and a bright future.
Menjay grew up in the afterglow of the glory days of Liberia. His family struggled to make do when times got grim. By the time civil war erupted on a large scale, making do was not an option. “My only hope for survival was to leave Liberia. I chose exile and hoped for a better day for my country,” Olu remembers.
Self-exile included a harrowing escape to Côte d’Ivoire. At the border Menjay was nearly executed, only spared death when a guard heard him pronounce his family name, “Menjay,” and asked if Olu were the son of Harrison Menjay. “Yes,” he replied. The guard released Olu, gave him some money, and told him that his father was good man who could be trusted. The good name “Menjay” and the reputation of his father saved Olu’s life and set his feet toward freedom.
In Côte d’Ivoire Olu worked for a while as a farmer before being befriended by Rev. John Mark Carpenter, a Mercer graduate and a Baptist missionary. Just before the 1991 winter quarter began at Truett McConnell College, Olu found himself in Cleveland, Ga., with only the clothes on his back. “I had nothing but my name and the providential support of a Mercerian and Georgia Baptists,” Menjay recalls.
After a successful two years at Truett McConnell Menjay was again without a place to go until another Mercerian, David Hinson, then-pastor of First Baptist Church of Cleveland, Ga. and now pastor of First Baptist Church in Frankfort, Ky., arranged with then-Mercer President Kirby Godsey for Menjay to take the first steps toward becoming an outstanding Mercerian in his own right.
Menjay entered Mercer in the fall of 1993 and, over the next two years, distinguished himself as an outstanding sociology and Christianity major and a Mercer Ambassador. “Mercer changed my life,” Menjay says. “Through Mercerians like John Mark Carpenter and David Hinson, and through the models of my professors, I came to understand that high standards of excellence and deep commitments to service were calling my life. For a Mercerian neither excellence nor service are options; they are obligations.”
From Mercer Menjay went on to complete the Master of Divinity at Duke University. While in North Carolina he also served as assistant to the pastor for administration at Lewis Chapel Baptist Church in Fayetteville. Following Duke, Menjay entered a Master of Sacred Theology program in practical theology/missions at Boston University.
About the time he finished his coursework at BU, the dark clouds over Liberia began to lift. The civil war ended and the postponed hope for a brighter future broke like a stunning dawn. Menjay wanted to return home to Liberia and teach missions and theology at the Liberia Baptist Theological Seminary. His convention leaders had a different idea. They invited Menjay to take on the task of rebuilding Ricks Institute, a K-12 school that once was Liberia’s brightest light in primary and secondary education.
Menjay accepted the challenge and returned home to Liberia, full of the hope that had sustained him through his long personal exile.
After only four years, Ricks Institute is, again, the brightest light in primary and secondary education in Liberia. More than that, Dr. Olu Menjay — who recently earned his Ph.D. in church history from the University of Wales — has become the model for a new day in Liberia. What he learned at Mercer about excellence and service now are the by-words for Ricks Institute and also for a growing number of Liberians who see hope personified in Menjay.