In her own words...
I was born in Asheville, North Carolina, April 6, 1949 to Norman and Wilma Huntley. I graduated from Reynolds High School in 1967 and then graduated from Bob Jones University in 1971.
I was saved at the age of nine at Hooper's Creek Baptist Church in Fletcher, NC. My pastor was Rev. Lawrence Rhodes. (He recently had his 44th year anniversary at my home church.) My home church paid for me to go toScotland on a summer team while I was at Bob Jones. Just recently when we announced to my home church that we were going into full-time evangelism they were the second church to take us on for monthly support: dear Third Street Baptist in Cordele, GA, was the first church .
In December, 1970, Richard and I were married. We joined TabernacleBaptist Church in Greenville, SC, and stayed there 27 years. We both taught in the high school and in the Bible college. I taught 9th grade Speech, 10thgrade Government, 11th grade World History, and 12th grade Computer Literary. During these years my husband and I designed the very first computer lab for Tabernacle Christian Schools and I used my planning time period to introduce Computer Classes to the elementary grades. After school on several afternoons each week, I taught piano lessons. Then at night from 6:00 p.m. until 9:30 p.m.. I taught courses in the Bible College: English and American Literatures were my fourth year classes, Intro. To Social Studies was a third year course, Intro. To Physical Education was a second year course, Music Theory, and Speech were also second year courses. From time to time I also had short courses in Computer Literary and Word Processing.
Bethany and Benjamin were born during these wonderful 27 years and from the age of three months both of them were enrolled in Day Care, then Kindergarten, Elementary, and High School. Both had their first jobs at Tabernacle. Benjamin used to sweep sidewalks for his first non-paying job.Bethany's first job was in the Day Care and then in WTBI. She graduated fromPensacola with a major in Broadcasting. Benjamin also graduated from PCC with a major in Marketing.
We lived in three small homes during these 27 years. Each had been a fixer-upper. When the children were ready for college our little house on five acres of land had lovely hard wood and these trees sent Bethany to college for one year. Then when they were both at PCC we sold the house and five acres and moved into staff housing for the first time in our lives. (Giving up a house and land was the right thing for us to do in order to send our children to aChristian College!!)
When Dr.Sightler died in 1995, my husband spent most weekends going from church to church representing the Bible College. Thus, in 1997, he was in south Georgia not to candidate at Third Street Baptist Church but to representTabernacle Baptist College, but they kept calling him back. Finally, he had a wonderful peace about leaving Tabernacle and we moved to south Georgia for seven wonderful years.
I loved being a pastor's wife. I had the largest and most beautiful home I had ever had. I had the opportunity to teach women's Bible study groups and teach Sunday School and to start a Wednesday night children's hour called Christian Club. I had many wonderful preachers and their wives stay in our home. How I loved the entertaining. I gave free music lessons to young people in our church and started many singing groups. After school times with pre-teen and teens was called TNT's. These young ladies learned many crafts and I used them in helping decorate for ladies' meetings, banquets, etc.
I learned the talents of my ladies and tried to use their talents in various ways. We printed our own cookbooks - over 500 pages - and bought 6x9 inch notebooks and designed covers. (We had so many pages that we divided them into two books - Real Food and Sweet Stuff.) It took 50 hours to run off 50 copies of these 500 pages. Then a local printer would cut them in half and punch holes. Then I would get a work crew together and we would collate the books. Each set of cookbooks had 19 colored pages done by an artist in our church. And, a dear businessman in our church gave the ladies a color copier for this project. We had quilters, crafters, artists, cooks, and wonderful workers. In the building of our Fellowship Hall, we had three years of Christmas Craft Sales and with the cookbook money, the ladies gave $9,000.00 to the Kitchen Fund. We bought dishes, pots and pans, small appliances, and several furniture pieces.
My greatest joy was my Bible Class, JoyBells. We met every Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m. for an hour of Bible Study. After being at the church for a few months, a young lady came to me and said that I was doing "so much" for the older women and she wished that I would do something with the younger women. Thus, we started Junior JoyBells. I had several 10 week courses - Joyful Christian Wives, Fascinating Females, etc. Then we did practical courses such as beginning quilting where I brought in experts. Later on a caterer and cake decorator in our church took up this theme for younger girls and had Saturday classes once a month in cooking and baking. We made the girls their own aprons and chef hats: so adorable.
We had several missionary projects: we collected old eye-glasses for a medical missionary. We sewed tote bags for a missionary lady in Chad, Africa. We collected hundred of baby blankets and other baby items for missionary mid-wife Anne Dreisbach. We also became involved in Project Linus and made baby quilts and blankets and sent to hospitals for needy children.
I became very active in the Cordele Garden Club. I loved gardening and wanted to know what grew best in the south Georgia climate. I served as Chaplain for three years, then became Vice-President and then was asked to be President just when we were feeling the call into Evangelsim. I had many Christian friends in this Club and we were very active in our community. We had a Beauty Spot of the Month, we had a booth in our local fair and in the State Fair of Georgia. We planted trees in the community and held design classes at the local technical college.
Now, since July 18, 2004, we are in a new, exciting, scary ministry of evangelism. We have gone places where we knew no one. But, with the "peace that passes all understanding" we find that God is using us to help pastors and their wives. We have witnessed to lost people in RV parks and in truck stops. We have four churches that send monthly support: this is about 13% percent of our monthly budget. The rest comes from love offerings. We are trusting God to meet the needs. He has and He will.
I average two ladies meetings per year. My husband and I have done several yearly Marriage Enrichment Seminars in Florida. I have done many Mother/Daughter meetings from Virginia to Florida.
My life verse is Ephesians 6:10 - Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
My favorite poem/song is: TO BE USED OF GOD
To be used of God, to sing, to speak, to pray
To be used of God to show someone the way
I long so much to feel the touch of His consuming fire
To be used of God is my desire.
Shirley Huntley Hughes went to be with our Lord on November 2, 2018, after a long battle with cancer.