In obedience to the command of the Lord Jesus Christ to, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel" (Mark 16:15); and seeing the need for a mission board to aid those Bible-Believing, serious-minded men called of God to reach their respective fields of service; and with the blessing of his pastor, Rev. Kelton Williams and the Calvary Baptist Church, Red Bank, Tennessee; Dr. Homer Smith began "Word for the World Baptist Ministries" in January 1980. Word for the World Baptist Ministries began with 1 missionary family and 10 supporting churches. The Home Office was located in a spare bedroom of Bro. Homer Smith's house in Rossville, Georgia. The Home Office Staff consisted of Dr. Homer Smith – Founder / Executive Director, Mrs. Ellie Smith - Secretary, Rudy Stembridge - Office Manager / Bookkeeper, and Mrs. Cyndie Stembridge - Assistant Secretary / Bookkeeper. The furniture and equipment consisted of two desks, and chairs placed end to end, facing each other, one Olympia typewriter, one Royal adding machine, and one telephone. Our bookkeeping systems consisted of a card file, a black hand-written ledger, and a checkbook, but God blessed. Word for the World Baptist Ministries held its first Missionary Candidate School in October of that year and accepted 4 missionary families. By the end of our first year, we had 5 missionary families and had handled over $18,000 in missionary support and other funds. Also, in 1980, Word for the World Baptist Ministries moved under the authority of Tri-County Baptist Temple of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Dr. Homer Smith served as interim pastor. In 1982, Bro. Rudy Stembridge came on full-time in the Home Office as Office Manager and started his deputation. In 1983, the Home Office moved out of Dr. Homer Smith’s home and into the brand new facilities of Tri-County Baptist Temple located outside Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. This was a major move for both the church and the Mission Board, and gave us plenty of room to "spread out the operation so no one was working on top of another." The move also increased our needs for the Home Office. We had to add a new telephone system, 2 telephone lines, a copier system, and 4 more desks and chairs. We added more "mail boxes" for the missionaries and began having regular Office hours. By the end of our 5th year, 1984, Word for the World had grown to 26 missionary families, handled over $300,000 in missionary support and project funds, and began using computer systems to help with the paperwork. In 1986, Word for the World moved the date of our Missionary Candidate School to the third full week of June from the third full week in August. In 1987 Bro. Steve Smith joined our Home Office staff as a full-time bookkeeper and was a great asset to our staff. In 1988, Mrs. Marge Nadeja joined our Home Office staff as a volunteer office helper and has been a capable, competent, conscientious, worker. In 1988, Word for the World Baptist Ministries also broke the one million dollar mark! We handled over $1,000,000 in missionary support and project funds. God continued to bless! In 1994, Bro. Steve Smith felt led by God to move to Fort Smith, Arkansas to help a pastor build a church, and it was a great loss to the Home Office, but we Praise the Lord for Bro. Steve’s faithful service for 7 years! 1994 was also another landmark year! Word for the World went over the 100 mark for missionary families. By the end of 1994, there were 103 missionary families and we had handled over $2,000,000 in missionary support and project funds! In 1995, Word for the World Baptist Ministries began using a custom written computer program called "Mission Manager" written by Mr. Wolfgang J. Scott. This proved to be one of the greatest changes for the better that we have made since going on computer in 1984. It allowed 3 (or more) people to be processing support at the same time, and still allow each to keep up and track their own work for verification until it was updated. This also allowed us to store and access more information about churches, missionaries, deductions, checks, and vendors than ever before. Word for the World Baptist Ministries saw the largest increase in productivity and efficiency since our beginning in January 1980. God continues to bless! In 1998, Dr. Homer Smith resigned as interim pastor of Tri-County Baptist Temple. Word for the World Baptist Ministries was then moved under the authority of the New Testament Baptist Church in Elizabethton, Tennessee where Dr. Bill Allison is pastor. The Home Office was moved out of Tri-County Baptist Temple’s facilities and into its own facility located in Catoosa County, Georgia. Currently there are 65 missionary families serving with Word for the World Baptist Ministries in 26 countries, on six continents, around the world. There are over 1,500 churches and individuals who support at least one of these missionary families. This group of supporters represents all 50 states and 12 foreign countries. God continues to bless, and we are making every effort to be ready for the next millennium to serve Him. We are working on another software program that will make us Y2K compliant, and will also give us the capability of developing our own "web-site". In January 2001 we went "on line" with our new computer system. Mr. Don Mace of Dunamis Technologies supplied the programming and Bro. Rudy Stembridge supplied the structure. We purchased new hardware in November 2000 and our new software was ready for use on January 1. We are excited about our future in the Lord, and we want you to be too! God continues to bless and on June 1st, 2004, Word for the World Baptist Ministries was moved under the authority of Bible Believer's Baptist Church of Stowe, Pennsylvania, Dr. Mike Collingwood is the pastor. In October 2006, God allowed us to purchase a new office building to house the entire ministry. It is located in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia and has almost 3,200 square feet of space. That is four times the space we have had until now. This building allows us the opportunity to begin holding our Bible / Missions Institute classes again. On January 25th, 2007 we held our official "Open House" for our new building and had over 70 in attendance! Rev. Mike Keenan said the prayer of dedication for the ministry and a good devotional brought by our newest member of our Board of Directors, Rev. Chris Staub. With the purchase of this new facility, we are more excited about our future and pray the Lord will continue to open doors and bring those men we can help to us. Along with our new building, we upgraded all of our computer equipment and programs and are ready to handle however many  missionaries the Lord will bring us. Please pray for us the God will bless this ministry and keep it in the center of His Will! Thank you.