MARIETTA - When he was just 10 years old, Bill Rogers "surrendered his life to missions" during a two-week revival, he recalls, envisioning himself "going to Africa to teach the heathen about Christ."

For the next 35 years, however, that call to missions sensed by the youngster was tucked away. He pursued an education and career; he started a family; he got busy with the everyday routines of life. It wasn't until multiple sclerosis interrupted his fast-track life that his childhood call to missions was rekindled.

"I found out my company didn't have a use for me, but I found out that the Lord did," he says.

In mid-1983, Rogers went to work as a volunteer for Noonday Baptist Association, helping coordinate its social ministry outreach - and he has never looked back.

"I discovered there was a mission field right here, with more than 50,000 unchurched people," he says.

For twenty years - all spent as a North American Mission Board Mission Service Corps (MSC) volunteer - he helped shape and build the ministry. What had begun as a simple benevolence ministry became a model of an associational clearinghouse for a church-based ministry.

With funds from the Georgia Baptist Convention as well as local contributions, Storehouse Ministries receives requests for ministry, including requests for food as well as utility and rent assistance, verifies the need, and then sends those requests to churches in the 110-church association. Those seeking shelter are referred to nearby homeless shelters. Seven churches in the association distribute food, while other churches donate food to the ministry, which puts together boxes, weighing about 70 pounds and containing enough staples to feed a family for several days.

"This puts the ministry where it should be - in the churches," says Rogers, who believes the model is biblically based.

Since its inception, Storehouse Ministries has been a completely volunteer-run ministry, with several volunteers serving for multiple years. In his role as director, Rogers has enlisted, trained and coordinated these volunteers, asking no more from them than what he was willing to give himself. Through Vacation Bible School and church mission organizations, children- some the same age as Rogers was when he was called to missions- often participate in donating food items or putting together boxes of food.

In 2003 volunteers put in approximately 500 hours a month in the ministry. Those hours of service have been translated into assistance to those in need, with Storehouse Ministries helping 350 - 400 families each month in 2003, with the numbers going even higher in November and December.

Although the ministry can be tiring, Rogers seems tireless.

"He has a real heart and passion for the ministry," says Larry Fillingim, director of missions for Noonday Association.

On the walls of Rogers' office hang not only pictures of volunteers but also inspiring mottos, intended to encourage him and his team of volunteers on the most challenging of days. "There are no problems, just opportunities," invokes one sign. Another reads: "There are no great men, only great challenges for men to meet."

As a model for an associational clearinghouse ministry, Storehouse Ministries has been recognized by both the North American Mission Board and Georgia Baptist Convention.

Rogers concluded his service with Storehouse Ministries on Dec. 31. His twenty years of service was recognized and celebrated in a banquet on Dec. 4 at Marietta's Roswell Street Baptist Church. The Association plans to continue the ministry and has named Mike Faulkner, pastor of a mission church in Paulding County, as interim coordinator.

Looking back on the unexpected change in plans that became his passion for 20 years, Rogers declares, "It's the best job I ever had." Although he didn't make it to Africa, he discovered that he was "doing exactly what God wanted me to do; while I had seen it one way, God has seen it another way," he says.

He may be retiring from Storehouse Ministries, but he is quick to say he's not retiring from the ministry. He's committed to serving wherever and doing whatever the Lord directs - as a volunteer, of course.