The Book of Acts says, “Signs and wonders followed those who believe.” Well, signs and wonders follow Moises. With a budget of zero, Moises has planted seven or eight churches and invests his time, encouragement, and leadership in some thirty more. He gives when he has nothing—which is all the time. He is a magnificent practical joker, smiles constantly, loves to sing, is tender with his wife, children, and grandchildren, and calls me “mi hermano.” That means “my brother.” To say I’m honored is an understatement of mythic proportions.
The contrast between us has proven this: I’m a spoiled American. I have hot water at the flick of a dial, a smartphone, a truck with AC, two televisions with a couple hundred channels each, an ice maker, cough medicine, a Tempur-Pedic mattress, deodorant, the list goes on. Yet the Lord has used this map dot twelve hundred miles south to reveal another piece of His heart to me. And most of that He’s done through the lives and words of both Moises and Pauline.
Pauline doesn’t seek the spotlight. Never has. But everywhere I’ve been in Nicaragua, she’s been there first. Checking it out. Making sure. Protecting me. She’s the window through which I’ve perceived this beautiful country and these magnificent, towering, and tender people who’ve stolen my heart. And when I’m there in that country, and Moises asks me to speak in a church, which is most every night, she is my voice. She translates me to all of them. Without her, there really isn’t a me in Nicaragua. And if you ask Moises, her name would be written in Hebrews 11 before his.
Water from My Heart bubbled up and out of this soup. This love, this laughter, these tears, this pig, these roaches in the outhouse, these mangoes, these whispers beyond the wall. I’d like to think I’m less indifferent but let’s be honest: I’m typing this on a new iPad via a wireless keyboard in a car with a seat heater ’cause it’s cold outside. David Crowder is singing on the Bose speakers next to me. He is singing, “We will never be the same.”
Let me end with this: About two years ago, Moises needed a well dug on the land where he keeps his cows, so we paid a skinny local to dangle from a long rope for about three weeks. Today, that well is much like the one you’ve just read about. Moises and his sons use it every day to provide for their cows. Water their plants. You can tug on the rope. Raise the bucket. Soak your head. First time I saw Moises drink from it, he wiped his mouth and put his hand on my shoulder, nodding. He spoke slowly, knowing I couldn’t follow him otherwise. “Agua de mi corazón.”
I turned to Pauline. My face spoke a phrase I have asked ten thousand times. “What’s he saying?”
Her eyes welled. “It translates, ‘Water from my heart.’”
But translation and meaning are often two different things. So I said, “But…what’s it mean?”
Moises, one hand still on my shoulder, put his other hand flat across my heart. His face close to mine, he spoke. Pauline made it so my heart could understand. “It means that every time he drinks here, he will remember that this water comes from your heart.” I didn’t know how to respond to Moises so I just hugged him and kissed his cheek. If I spoke Spanish, I’d tell him that his words washed my soul far more than my water washed his face.
More than fifteen years ago, God took my pen to Nicaragua. Once there, He led my crusty heart to a courageous, tenderhearted woman named Pauline and a humble friend of God named Moises. I’ve seldom felt so clean.
If there’s something satisfying in this story that filled you up, washed over you, that something rose out of a deep place. The kind of spring only God can make—where the tears are clean and rinse the soul. To get there, He had to break through the stony bedrock of my indifference. It took some doing. There was a lot of junk in the way. No ordinary pick and shovel would do. He needed some special tools, which He placed in the hands of Pauline and Moises. Together, they dug a well in me.
I pray the water is sweet. Even more, I pray it tastes like mangoes.
Also by Charles Martin
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Unwritten
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
On Digging a Well
Also by Charles Martin
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Charles Martin
“On Digging a Well” copyright © 2015 by Charles Martin
Cover design by Jody Waldrup
Cover photograph by Steve Clancy/Getty Images
Cover copyright © 2015 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ISBN 978-1-4555-5469-0
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