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by Rutha Hughey

When I was a child, I was told that I would never be anything and that I would never go anywhere. I was told that I would never be successful at anything because of the way my mother lived her life. It made me, as a small child, want to be a better person; better than anyone thought I could be. I believe that the enemy of my soul tried desperately, throughout my life, to destroy me. I fought so hard to see the beauty in life and chose to hang around beautiful people after whom I could pattern my life. One of these people was my great aunt who raised me from the time I was one and a half years old. She was a very virtuous lady and tried to be a good mother to me.

All through my life, I spent a lot of time alone reading. One day, I happened to pick up a Bible that had been given to me in Sunday school. Some of the verses stood out to me; one was Psalms 23:1-5. I felt protection when I read that chapter. In my heart, I knew that God expected me to live without doing wrong. And there was a scripture about God sending us help to live a righteous life. These scriptures always stuck with me as a young person and throughout my life.

One of my problems was fear. I had hideous nightmares because I was misused a lot. All of these bad and confusing things happening to me caused me to pray. One day, just before graduating from high school, I decided that I had found something that I really wanted to do ~ be a barber. I wanted to do people’s hair and make them look nice.
When I was young, my mother fixed my hair and it really hurt! So I learned to do my own hair when I was very young. There were already so many beauticians for women, and I wanted to make the men look good. I would look at men’s hair and I knew I could make them to look nice too.

When I graduated from high school, I moved to Detroit, Michigan to live with my grandfather. I thought I could get a start working at a grocery store, but I couldn’t find work because I was too young and inexperienced. I began to ask my grandfather to send me to school to be a barber. My grandfather was convinced that there was no such thing as a woman barber because he and his brothers cut each other’s hair. He refused to send me to school to be a barber; he said he would send me to beauty school. I figured I could become a barber if I went to beauty school. I was accepted at the school I chose even though I was so young; I would be old enough to work by the time I graduated.
While I was in school, I learned a lot of things that were not normally taught in beauty school, such as: weft making (a process used for wig making), how to apply hair extensions, how to make unusual hairstyles, and strange hair colorings. Before I graduated, a lady started to attend our class who worked in a beauty shop. For some reason, she took a liking to me and told her employer about me. When I graduated, I went to work for this lady and she taught me how to make wigs.

Through a twist of fate, I got in trouble and had to return to Arkansas. I often wondered why I received so much favor in my hair classes and why I did so well. I was the first one who got out of beauty school and actually got a job working in the field. I didn’t realize that God had given me the talent for working with hair. I took it for granted. Now, being in Arkansas, I wondered if I would ever get to do hair again. I wanted to go back to Detroit because my friend was holding my job for me. But after some time, I realized that it wasn’t God’s will for me to go back there. So, I went to San Francisco because God was calling me there. I thought that I would go back into cosmetology in California. I even checked out some schools, but it didn’t work out. So I prayed, “God, why did you have me go to school for this? Why did you give me so much favor in school and work, but now I don’t get to use it?”

I spent the next thirty years working as a municipal railway bus driver, working at hotels, and doing in-home nursing care. Then one Sunday evening a few years ago, my pastor said, “I have a problem. I need a wig master for WYSIWYG’s next project.” After service, I asked him what a wig master does and he explained to me that a wig master makes wigs for the characters in movies or plays. I told him that I had studied cosmetology and I had learned all about making wigs professionally. He could hardly believe it because he thought he knew all about my life. How could it be possible that I could know how to make wigs?! He was amazed. I just smiled and told him that I had learned a few things before coming to San Francisco.

The same month and year that Brother Richard had been given the call to make movies that “Bring the presence of God to the homes of the world through entertainment,” God had told me to resign from my job as a bus driver. I wondered why, because He didn’t tell me what to do next. I had so much pain and sickness in my body at the time, that I was almost unable to go to work, but I didn’t want to give up my job. I didn’t know how I was going to live. But God promised me that He would take care of me and He has done just that. After some time, I agreed to work for WYSIWYG.

My first assignment was to make horsehair wigs for a Christmas play that the church was doing. That was quite a task to break-in on! Some of the hairs were so large that you could only hand-tie one strand of hair at a time. It was a trial trying to maneuver my hands for such tiny detail, but God gave me grace. We finished the wigs and most of them turned out great. A couple of the wigs were so heavy that it was hard for the actors to wear them.

The next movie I will work on is called “Gravity.” I am very excited about traveling and getting to meet all of the people who are a part of this large production. I am having a great experience. I’m excited for the production to get going again. To my amazement, God has blessed me to work with beautiful people who love the Lord and who strive for righteousness and obedience to the Lord.