Two Lochaber women have just returned from the trip of a lifetime, forging links with a church in southern Africa.
Reverend Morag Muirhead, of Fort William, and June Cairns, of Arisaig, were representing the Church of Scotland’s Lochaber Presbytery on its first twinning visit to Zambia.
The partnership with the Emmasdale congregation in Lusaka, which belongs to the United Church of Zambia, was established last year and three members of that church visited Lochaber in November.
Mrs Muirhead, 67, who is the ordained local minister for the Duncansburgh MacIntosh Parish Church in Fort William and Kilmonivaig Church in Spean Bridge, said she and Mrs Cairns, 75, jumped at the chance when the Lochaber Presbytery received a reciprocal invitation.
She said: “I had always wanted to visit Zambia since I was a child and it was everything I imagined it to be.
“It was a tremendous experience, but we were there to do a job, which was to try to set up projects that would be mutually beneficial.”
She added that they came back with a few initiatives in the pipeline, two of which relate to an outlying settlement in the Emmasdale area, called Mafuwa.
Mrs Muirhead explained: “It is a small community of about 300 people, including 60 orphans, right out in the bush.
“They live in traditional mud huts with grass roofs or grass huts and they have no water in the village so they have to walk 6km twice a day for water.
“One of the projects is to get a borehole and pump in the village for them.”
She added that the congregation at Kiel Church, near Lochaline on Morvern, were keen to take this one on as they have no water supply in their church.
And she said: “They felt that before they tackle their own water problem, they would like to help a village which also has no water to obtain a supply.”
The minister added that the people of Lochaber could learn a lot from their counterparts in South Africa.
She stated: “The church is growing rapidly. The building can only hold 500 people, so they have to hold two services so that everyone can attend.
“They are now planning to build a bigger church that will hold 2,500 people.
“There are so many ways that we can help them, but we can also learn a lot for them, such as respect and courtesy.”
Mrs Cairns, who is an elder in the North West Lochaber Parish, was also impressed by the people she met.
She said: “I’d always wanted to go to a developing country in the way we went – staying with ordinary people, rather than going with a travel agent and staying in a tourist area.
“What really struck me was the welcome and the friendliness. Everyone was so courteous to each other and they really lived their faith.”
As they were saying goodbye to their hosts, they were each presented with a dress and a shirt made in a fabric bearing the United Church of Zambia symbol.
