Resham’s Story 

The account of a young 2½ year old boy, Resham, gives an insight into some of the daily challenges facing many people in Nepal.  

Resham was accidentally burnt by his brother who was playing with fire outside near their house.  He is one of six brothers and sisters. Along with these siblings and parents, his grandparents and uncle and aunty also live in the same house.  

A few years ago this family lived about 5 hours away from Tansen, but after a severe house fire the family home was destroyed and they were forced to move to an area not far from Tansen into a rented house. Resham’s father is the only wage earner and is in essence supporting 12 people. For them the challenges of daily life and re-establishing a new home from scratch (after the fire) were enough to deal with, but then there was Resham’s accident.  

In October 2008 Resham presented at the hospital with 29% of his body burnt, and his survival was very much in doubt. Over the following few months he received a total of 12 skin graft operations, slowly re-covering areas of dead tissue that had been lost to the fire. Recovery after such extensive surgery is also heavily dependent on the child’s general physical health and nutrition levels at the time of admittance. We often see many children who are already malnourished before they present at the hospital.  A malnourished child has a much slower recovery rate so it is imperative that they receive a supplementary high protein diet too.  

During his hospital stay his parents were asking for him to be discharged as they had lost hope of him surviving. The Pastoral Care Team was able to spend time and pray with him and his parents as they went through an extended stay at hospital. Over the weeks he slowly improved and was at last able to be discharged home. As you can imagine his parents are delighted and saying that he has been given life again. In addition the pastoral care fund was able to pay 90% of Resham’s final bill, as well as providing him with a high protein diet too, thus removing a bill that otherwise the family would never have been able to afford. 

At a time when we see many painful sights, especially with children, we are thankful to God for the opportunity to witness stories of success despite all the odds.

If you would like to learn more about the work of our Pastoral Care Team please click here.