Tea Fields in the Shire.

Since sometime around 2000, I have been making trips every few years to the Tigoni-Limuru hills above Nairobi, Kenya, for meetings at the Brackenhurst conference center. It is a beautiful setting for meeting, with some old colonial buildings and weather that actually calls for fires in the fireplaces. 

But the best part about meeting at Brackenhurst is walking out the front gate, and down the lane about a kilometer to visit THE SHIRE. Or at least that is what the tea fields evoke to me.

The tea is actually about waist high, but all the same height so that it looks like rolling grass lawns. 

It is not hard to imagine Frodo or Bilbo coming around the corner!

There are little paths going down the tea fields. These are used by the people who pick the tea by hand.

At the bottom of the valley, is a large white house and a village which houses the tea pickers (or so I have always assumed). 

 The tea pickers village. I have no idea if this tea is "fair trade" or the sort of living in provides.

 A worker picking the tea by hand.

 These workers in the distance each have a large sack of tea that sits up on top of the plants. I have seen them selling these at the end of the day, when they are weighed and loaded on trucks.

 

Coming from the brownness of the Sahel, I was always overwhelmed by the GREEN. This picture is really as green as it looks - no enhancements. 

I usually manage to get a picture taken in front of the tea fields. This is the one from 2014.

and this is from 2009

And 2004 (I believe)

Sadly, we tend to have our meetings elsewhere now, in a less beautiful setting. But I was happy to get to return this year. 

If you drink tea, it is likely that some of your tea comes from Kenya, as it is the third largest producer of tea behind China and India. 

My understanding is that this tea could be made into white, green or black tea. It has to do with when the leaves are picked and the drying and other processes applied to them and not with the plant! Also of interest is that they only pick the new growth, which is the top 3-4 inches of the plant, Just like the bushes in your yard, this new growth is a lighter green color and the leaves are softer. 

Come to the Garden - A Pictorial devotional for Holy Week

Last Sunday, I was in Karen, Kenya at the Dimessi Sisters' Convent and Monastery, a retreat center where we frequently go for small workshops and meetings. Karen is the site of the Karen Blixen farm, where "Out of Africa" was set. The historic site is just a kilometer from where we were.

So after a nap on sunday afternoon, I went out in the afternoon to their garden, hoping to read and journal in the quiet. What I discovered was much more.

Come with me to the garden and find a bench to sit on in the late afternoon sun.

What's that back in the trees?  At first it blends in to the bushes and branches and cacti.

 

Let's move closer to get a better view. .

  

The light breaking through the trees catches the figures and draws you

                            to stand with them, at the foot of the cross. 

Your focus draws inward to the central figure.

 Behold, the Man, hung on a tree.

 The Lamb of God -  Broken for you and for me.

 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering....He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 

 Take a moment to ponder just how much he loves you and me. 

 

 We adore you O Christ and we bless you. All: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

 

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