I was going through some of my old stories in my ‘Illustration File.’ This is one of my favorites from Tony Campolo. I hope it speaks to you.
Many years ago, when I was a young pastor, I was asked to be a counselor at a junior-high camp. Everyone should be a counselor at a junior-high camp—ONCE! For any Roman Catholics who may be reading this, I have to say that I now believe there is a Purgatory. I have been there. It’s junior-high camp!
Junior-high boys have a strange & often cruel sense of humor. There’s a strong tendency for them to pick on some unfortunate, offbeat kid & ridicule him, making him the brunt of their jokes. This was certainly the case during this particular week of summer camp. They picked on a 13-year-old kid named Billy, who couldn’t walk right or talk right. He dragged his body across the campground in spastic fashion, & when he spoke his words were markedly slurred.
The boys at the camp would often mimic his gestures, & they thought that was funny. One day I heard him asking for directions. I can even now hear his almost indiscernible, painfully spoken words: “Which . . . way . . . is . . . the craft shop?”
The boy he asked, mocking his slurred speech & using convoluted hand language said, “It’s over—there . . . Billy boy.”
But the cruelest thing they did was on a Thursday morning. Billy’s cabin had been assigned to lead morning devotions, & his cabin mates all voted for him to be the speaker. They wanted to get him up there in front of everybody so they could be entertained by his struggling attempts to say anything at all.
When I found out about it, I was furious, but there was nothing I could do. It did not seem to bother Billy! Somehow he dragged himself up to the rostrum as waves of snickers flowed over the audience. It took Billy almost half a minute to say, “Je—sus . . . loves . . . me . . . & . . . I . . . love Je—sus.”
When he finished, there was stunned silence. When I looked over my shoulder I saw that all over the place there were junior-high boys with tears streaming down their cheeks. Some of them had their heads bowed. A revival broke out!
We had done many things that week to try to reach the boys with the gospel message, but nothing had worked. We had even brought in baseball players whose batting averages had gone up since they started praying, but it had had no effect. It wasn’t until a spastic kid named Billy simply declared his love for Christ that everything changed.
I travel a great deal, & it is surprising how often I come upon people who say something like, “You probably don’t remember me. I became a Christian at a junior-high camp where you were a counselor. And do you know what the turning point was for me?”
I don’t have to ask. I always know what I’m going to hear. “Billy!”
God doesn’t need superstars to declare His Word. He loves to take “the stones which the builders reject” to use as the foundation rock for building His Kingdom.
You can read some of my other stories from Tony Campolo: The Impact of a Teacher, The Marine and the Grenade, It’s Friday but Sunday’s Comin’.