“Compassion saved the life of my Rihanata …”
“I had never seen someone feel as badly as my daughter. I couldn’t even hold her because she had been burned on every part of her body.”
Nematou still remembers the day she stepped into the hospital room and saw her precious daughter covered in bandages and burns.
Hours earlier, 5-year-old Rihanata had been playing in the family courtyard while her grandmother cooked lunch. As Rihanata ran by the small charcoal furnace, she stumbled and fell, screaming as hot oil covered her body.
“It was so very painful that I can hardly describe how I felt,” says Rihanata.
Neighbors rushed to find Nematou, who was working at the market selling fruit. She ran to the hospital and stared down at her daughter, watching her scream and cry, powerless to take away Rihanata’s pain.
“I believe that it was God who healed me.”
- Rihanata
Doctors at the small clinic quickly realized they were not equipped to deal with the severity of Rihanata’s burns. They sent her to Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso, 200 miles away, for surgery.
Nematou was frantic. Her daughter was going to be transported hours away, and she knew she had no money to pay the girl’s growing medical bills. So she reached out to the only place she knew — the Compassion center where Rihanata was registered.
“As soon as I received the call from Rihanata’s mom, we prayed at the center and I immediately traveled with the girl and her mother to the pediatric hospital in Ouagadougou,” says Patrice, the health specialist at the Compassion center. “Rihanata was admitted to intensive care. The doctors reported that about 80 percent of her body had suffered third to fifth-degree burns.”
Rihanata spent the next 15 months at the hospital. And because of your support of Compassion’s Medical Fund, Nematou could focus all of her energy during those long months on caring for, and supporting, her daughter.
“The project staff provided every kind of support and I didn’t feel abandoned,” says Nematou. “Patrice traveled regularly to the hospital to see us. He also called to get updates on her condition. Moreover, Compassion paid for all of the hospital expenses that I couldn’t afford. Compassion saved the life of my Rihanata following this accident.”
The support was more than just physical and financial. Nematou says that at the Compassion center Rihanata had learned to pray. And each day of her recovery was filled with prayers for her complete healing.
“I believe that it was God who healed me,” says Rihanata. “Now I feel good, without pain. Everything is back to normal, even if I still keep the scars on my body.”
Today, Rihanata is a healthy, active 7-year-old. Her scars are a testimony — to God’s healing, to a mother’s love and to a little girl’s perseverance.