Shinkou

June 25, 2011
Limuru, Kenya

HEART felt we had been working hard this week so today, being Saturday, was going to be an easy day. We had a leisurely drive up to Limuru, which is beautiful country! We drove past plantation after plantation of tea plants. The dark shiny Camellia leaves were in sharp contrast to the large floppy lighter green banana leaves. The elevation here is higher than Nairobi - over 6000 feet.

In Limuru, we worked at the Harvest Field Bible College. We were there to help paint rooms for church, bible study and conferences. Harvest Field is run out of Sharon Cranford's home. She is a missionary and long time friend of Vickie Winkler, HEART founder. Her 2 story 3 car garage had been used as the sanctuary for church and there were dormitory and classroom buildings on this large site. There were about 25 male students living on campus. My job was to help paint the "garage". That room was nearly 20' tall and we were given key lime green paint! I like green, but key lime? Well this room also had a lot of white tile on the wall. As I painted, I had visions of Key West, Florida. Somehow it just didn't seem to go with the Kenyan surroundings. How wrong could I be??? When we finished I was stunned how alive and vibrant the sanctuary looked! We were told that a married couples convention was going to be conducted in this room this summer. And church services were to be conducted in here the next day. While my group was painting the sanctuary, the other group painted classrooms the same key lime green. No one will fall asleep in those classrooms!

We finished our project just after lunchtime, so we drove back to Nairobi and dined at Nairobi Java House! This place is run by American ex-patriots and has food reminiscent of Denny's. My mushroom burger was terrific, in spite of the "mushroom" part of the burger being cream of mushroom soup! We spent our lunch in fellowship and sharing, drinking Diet Cokes and eating burgers. It was a much appreciated change in menu.

Our last stop was to go souvenir shopping downtown. Vickie's good friend Babu owns a trinket shop near the Kenyatta International Convention Center. We all went shopping and bought great handicrafted items at such reasonable prices. We had to turn in early that night as we had to get up very early the next day to drive deep into Maasai country for church!