Every June we hold a revival at Harmony Friends Meeting. These revivals began when I was a kid, and back then, I enjoyed them. I especially enjoyed the time Cowboy Bob, the Wild West Evangelist, preached and did rope tricks and told how the devil had him hogtied, but then Jesus lassoed him and now he wears the kingdom brand. Then he passed out prayer bandannas and invited us to pray the Cowpoke’s Prayer: “Dear Lord, I’ve been a low-down, rotten cowpoke. Take away my black hat and mark me with your kingdom brand. Amen.”
Afterwards, Cowboy Bob and his wife, Charlene, sat at the back of the meetinghouse and sold white cowboy hats and musical tapes of Cowboy Bob and the Kingdom Korral singing their favorite gospel tunes of the Old West.
When I was a child I loved listening to Cowboy Bob and all the other evangelists who would visit our church each June. There was Brother Bruno, who found the Lord in prison and became an evangelist. Then came Mohammed the Baptist, who had grown up Muslim and was converted by a missionary. He wore a turban and robes and took kids on camel rides in the parking lot.
When I was in the seventh grade, Miss Marcella Montero came to speak. She had been a 4-H Fair beauty queen, then moved to Hollywood and compromised her morals. Ten years later, she couldn’t talk about it without weeping. Thankfully, she had turned from sin, renewed her faith, and taken to the revival circuit, where she hinted of past depravities. We waited breathlessly for details, though she was not as forthcoming as we’d have liked.
I loved all this as a child, but now that I’m the pastor, it’s a little hard to take. The evangelists come and do rope tricks and tell dramatic stories about their lives of sin before they met the Lord. Sin creative in its originality. Sin we didn’t know existed. It is thrilling to listen to, and a little shocking. Then they leave and the next week I step back in the pulpit, and the air is thick with disappointment. It makes me wish I had sinned a bit more before I became a Christian, so I could offer a more colorful testimony.
Truthfully, I was somewhat embarrassed by these evangelists and wanted to dispense with the revivals altogether. So at the April meeting of elders, when Dale Hinshaw brought up the subject of the June revival, I suggested that this might be the year to skip the revival and have a week of prayer instead.
“That’s so boring,” Fern Hampton said. “Let’s think of something else.”
It was then that Dale Hinshaw told about Billy Bundle, the World’s Shortest Evangelist, who was preaching in the city. Dale had gone to hear him and was greatly impressed by this little man who was so short he couldn’t see over the pulpit. He told how Billy took the big pulpit Bible, placed it on the floor, said “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet,” then stepped up on that Bible to preach.
Dale Hinshaw was captivated and vowed to bring the World’s Shortest Evangelist to Harmony Friends Meeting as our June revival speaker.
“You should have seen the crowd,” Dale exclaimed. “The place was packed. The offering was so big they had to empty the baskets halfway through. We do this right and we can maybe raise enough money to buy new cabinets for the church kitchen.”
Fern Hampton said, “I’m for that.”
So that is how Billy Bundle, the World’s Shortest Evangelist, came to speak at the June revival of Harmony Friends Meeting.
Billy Bundle hadn’t always been an evangelist. He’d started out as a professional wrestler. My brother Roger and I used to watch him Saturday afternoons on Channel 5. The wrestling matches were held at the armory in the city. If we wrapped tin foil around the television antennas and slid it up and down, Channel 5 would come in clear. We were little kids, and professional wrestling made a great impression. We’d push the furniture back to the walls and wrestle in our underwear, just like Billy Bundle.
Except that they didn’t call him Billy Bundle on television. They called him “The Mississippi Midget,” even though he wasn’t from Mississippi, nor was he a midget. He was from the Bronx and came from a long line of short people. He spoke in a Southern drawl and wore bright red wrestling trunks. As he walked to and from the ring, he wore a top hat, which he took off in the presence of ladies. A Southern gentleman.
Billy was one of the good guys, at least at first. Then he became one of the bad guys and would kick his opponent when the referee wasn’t watching. He hid brass knuckles in his trunks, which the referees never found. He hit below the belt. He was an easy man to hate.
Then Billy had his accident, which everyone watching Channel 5 witnessed. He got tangled in the ropes, fell, and broke his right leg, which caused him to limp for the rest of his life.
While Billy was in the hospital he watched Channel 21, the religion station, and realized his true calling: evangelism. He quit the wrestling business and began traveling from town to town, preaching revivals. On the last night of the revivals, Billy would do a dramatization from the book of Genesis, Jacob wrestling with the stranger at the river Jabbok. He would ask for a volunteer from the audience, whom he would fling around the platform, using flips and body slams and headlocks. At the stirring conclusion of his story, you’d hear a loud c-r-a-c-k and Billy would rise to his feet, grimacing, and hobble away—just like Jacob. It always brought in a good offering, and afterwards Billy would autograph pictures of himself dressed in his wrestling trunks, back when he was “The Mississippi Midget.”
This was the man Dale Hinshaw chose to bring a message from the eternal God.
The revival lasted three nights—Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The weekend before, the Friendly Women’s Circle posted fliers at the Laundromat, the Krogers, and in the front window of the Coffee Cup. Bob Miles Jr. ran an article in the Herald about Billy, chronicling his early years in the Bronx, his fame as a championship wrestler, and his triumph as the World’s Shortest Evangelist. He printed a picture of Billy in his red wrestling trunks, holding a Bible. Bob didn’t even put it in the religion section, where no one would notice. He slapped it right on the front page, up in the left corner next to the weather, where everyone looked.
On Thursday afternoon I went to the Coffee Cup and Billy Bundle was all they were talking about. They remembered watching him on Channel 5.
“For a little fella, he was some wrestler,” Bob Miles Sr. was saying. “He’d grab hold of someone at the knees and they couldn’t shake him loose. He’d hang on tight and wear ’em down. He was a real American, too. He’d spit out his gum before the national anthem. Not like these athletes nowadays.”
Billy drove into town later that day in his van with The World’s Shortest Evangelist painted on the side. I could see his head just above the steering wheel. He bounded from the van and shook my hand. He squeezed it hard, as if handshaking were less a greeting and more a contest.
I took him inside the meetinghouse, showed him the pulpit, and asked what he would be speaking on.
“The Lord told me to preach on spiritual warfare,” Billy said. “You’re gonna love it. On the last night, I wear military fatigues—special made—and I march into the church to ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever.’ It’s a sight to see. People snap to when they see me come in. They know I mean business.”
I asked, “Does this mean you’re not going to dress like Jacob and wrestle with the stranger at the river Jabbok?”
“No, that was last year’s gig,” he said. “This year I’m a soldier.”
He stayed at our house, a minor detail Dale Hinshaw had forgotten to mention. I told Dale we didn’t have an extra bed.
“That’s okay, Sam,” Dale said. “Billy can have your bedroom. It’s only for three days. Our Lord slept in a tomb that long. Surely you can give up your bed.”
So Billy slept in our bed while Barbara and I slept on the pullout couch in the living room, the metal bar gouging our backs. We could hear Billy’s snoring through the heat ducts.
I was raised to believe I could do anything I put my mind to. I put my mind to liking Billy Bundle, but failed.
On his first night of preaching, Billy revealed how liberalism had invaded the church through pastors who’d studied left-wing theology at fancy schools in the city. He looked at me as he spoke. He told how, when the Lord returned, there’d be some pastors getting set straight.
“Amen,” Dale Hinshaw shouted.
On Friday night, Billy brought to light a secret code he had discovered in the Old Testament book of Obadiah. Bible scholars had studied Obadiah for thousands of years, but God had seen fit to reveal this secret to Billy Bundle, the World’s Shortest Evangelist.
“I know when the Lord will return,” shouted Billy. “The very date. I know where it’ll happen. I know how it’ll happen.”
“Bring it on,” Dale Hinshaw yelled.
On Saturday night the meetinghouse was full. Word had gotten out that Billy had something special in store. He wore his soldier’s outfit and marched in to “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”
Dale Hinshaw leapt to his feet and saluted.
At the end of his message, Billy gave an altar call. He invited anyone who wanted to enlist in Billy’s Army to come forward for recruitment. Six people came forward, the same six who always go forward. If I had been their general, I’d have gone AWOL.
Billy left early Sunday morning, to my deep relief. I waved good-bye to him from the curb in front of our house. I watched as his van turned the corner and headed down Main Street toward the city. I prayed he would never return.
When I preached that morning I spoke of how, when Jesus walked this earth, He warned of false prophets, of ravenous wolves draped in sheep’s wool. How He told His followers the false prophets would bear bad fruit, so watch them closely. Do not judge, He told His followers, but be wise. Be fruit inspectors.
“You will know them by their fruits,” Jesus taught.
Then I sat in the Quaker silence thinking of Billy’s fruit—self-gratification before God’s glory, ignorance above wisdom, trickery over truth.
As he prepared to leave earlier that morning, Billy had told me he was booked through the year.
“The calls are rolling in,” he confided. “I’m thinking of upping my fee.”
That Tuesday, three people came to prayer meeting. I wondered why it was that only three people cared to gather to talk with God, while the World’s Shortest Evangelist could pack a church full.
I tried not to be discouraged. But I had an inkling how Jesus must have felt when all the folks fled Him at the end, chasing off to find someone a bit more fun to follow.
I know one thing for sure: Cowboy Bob, the Wild West Evangelist, was right all along. Sometimes we’re just low-down, rotten cowpokes, needing to be marked with the kingdom brand.