Alloway & Fisherton
Parish Church

The Covenant of Partnership between the Presbytery of Ayr and Bandawe and Limphasa Presbyteries of the CCAP in rural Northern Malawi began in 2004 when a World Mission team, including a minister from the Presbytery of Ayr, visited Malawi just after a very poor harvest.

The story of the traumatic experience of seeing many people virtually starving led to a Presbytery of Ayr team visit in 2006 to determine how best to help and the Presbytery Partnership Agreement has been in place since then. Subsequent team visits have taken place in 2008, 2010 2012 and 2014, as part of the Partnership Agreement to visit every other year. We have also welcomed our Brothers and Sisters in Christ here to Scotland on occasion.

The Covenant has encouraged individual churches in the Presbytery of Ayr to Twin with individual churches in our two Partner Presbyteries. This has worked very well and the team visits are to help sustain, develop and strengthen these links and to manage the specific projects we support.

In addition to informed prayers, the areas identified to help the local communities include: churches – people and church buildings; orphans – orphan care centres and nurseries; widows – widows associations; education – primary and secondary school and a school for the deaf; health – clinics and hospitals and; the need to achieve long term sustainability.

Alloway Parish Church has established a partnership with Bandawe All Girls Secondary School, (BAGSS).  Our school chaplaincy has enabled and encouraged a partnership between the two primary schools in the parish and Bandawe Primary Schools, which is next door on the traditional Mission Station of Bandawe.

In 2013, a youth team from Alloway along with our Youth and Schools Worker, set out to Malawi, and painted 11 classrooms at Bandawe Primary School.  A life changing visit for the teenagers, who have gone on to support and encourage Bandawe.