A thirsty desert traveler comes upon a strange site. Before him stands a rundown hut. Nearby is a well, the only source of water for miles around. Attached to the pump is a thin baking powder can with a message inside, written in pencil on a sheet of brown wrapping paper. This is the message...
This pump is all right as of June 1932. I put a new sucker washer into it and it ought to last five years. But, the washer dries out and the pump has got to be primed. Under the white rock I buried a bottle of
water, out of the sun and the cork end up. There‘s enough water in it to prime this pump, but not if you drink some water first. Pour in about 1/4, and let her soak to wet the leather. Then pour in the rest medium fast, and begin to pump. You‘ll get water.The well never has run dry. Have faith. When you get watered up, fill the bottle, and put it back like you found it for the next feller. Signed, Desert Pete
P.S.Don’t go drinking up all the water first! Prime the pump and you can get all the water you want.
Now consider that you are the person who comes up to the well and are very thirsty. What will you do? You really have two choices. Drink a little water immediately, or obey the note and find limitless water for yourself and future travelers.
One of the greatest lessons the note in the can gives us is that we must (no options here) give before we can receive. Countless people have given of faith so that we might live and grow. And the only thing which matters is that which lives on after we are gone. The note in the can points us to think of those who will travel after us. This struggle between selfish motives which can leave behind destruction and death, and a higher, better motive of thinking of others first has been going on for a long time.
Desert Pete certainly thought of you and me. And if we can think of the next person, we will, too.
This pump is all right as of June 1932. I put a new sucker washer into it and it ought to last five years. But, the washer dries out and the pump has got to be primed. Under the white rock I buried a bottle of
water, out of the sun and the cork end up. There‘s enough water in it to prime this pump, but not if you drink some water first. Pour in about 1/4, and let her soak to wet the leather. Then pour in the rest medium fast, and begin to pump. You‘ll get water.The well never has run dry. Have faith. When you get watered up, fill the bottle, and put it back like you found it for the next feller. Signed, Desert Pete
P.S.Don’t go drinking up all the water first! Prime the pump and you can get all the water you want.
Now consider that you are the person who comes up to the well and are very thirsty. What will you do? You really have two choices. Drink a little water immediately, or obey the note and find limitless water for yourself and future travelers.
One of the greatest lessons the note in the can gives us is that we must (no options here) give before we can receive. Countless people have given of faith so that we might live and grow. And the only thing which matters is that which lives on after we are gone. The note in the can points us to think of those who will travel after us. This struggle between selfish motives which can leave behind destruction and death, and a higher, better motive of thinking of others first has been going on for a long time.
Desert Pete certainly thought of you and me. And if we can think of the next person, we will, too.
