It is the season of Short-Term Missions
Here at TIME Ministries | About we love our short-term missions friends around the globe "Lord, we lift up all the short-term missions organizations around the world.
We pray for safe travels and protection for each team going and orgainzatikon hosting. May their efforts be fruitful and productive for Your kingdom. We also ask that lasting partnerships and friendships be formed, grounded in Your love, and that these connections continue to grow through eternity. Amen."
Here are just a few STM organizations you can be praying for.
Organizations Offering Short-Term Missions:
• MissionGuide.global: A platform to search for mission trips by ministry type and organization.
• DOVE USA: Offers various short-term mission trips, including Practical Missions, Empowering Missions, and Immersive Missions.
• Students International (SI): Focuses on short-term trips with a gospel-centered approach, including cultural immersion and community development.
• TIME Missions: Provides short-term mission trips with a focus on serving communities, sharing the gospel, and personal growth.
• World Medical Mission: Offers short-term opportunities at various hospitals.
• Handfuls of Hope: Focuses on working hand-in-hand with local churches to serve communities.
• e3 Partners Ministry: Offers short-term mission trips with a focus on sharing God's love and creating lasting change.
• IVHQ: Offers both short-term and long-term mission trips with a diverse range of volunteer projects.
• Mission Excellence: Provides resources and tools for churches and organizations to excel in short-term missions.
• Global Health Institute (SIMS): Offers short-term group trips to various countries.
• Nations Outreach: Offers group mission trips to different countries.
• Students International: Offers short-term mission trips for students and adults.
History of TIME
Introduction
The TIME Missions program began in 1968 when a group of young people from the United States spent a week during Christmas vacation in the village of Pueblo Nuevo in Old Mexico. At that time, it was called the Teenage Institute of Missionary Evangelism. However, because so many of the Summer-TIMErs in subsequent years have been college-agers and adult counselors, the name was changed to The Institute of Missionary Evangelism and is currently known as TIME Missions. Since the First TIMErs arrived in Pueblo Nuevo in 1968, thousands of people of all ages have visited Mexico and the Dominican Republic on a TIME Trip.
Missions Statement
The purpose of TIME Missions is to lead short-term groups to the mission field where they help nationals build local churches through evangelism, construction and discipleship projects. To do this, we will lead groups of Christians to needy fields for short-term mission tours. This will benefit sending organizations by deepening their vision of missions and thus maturing their people spiritually. It will benefit the receiving field by evangelizing lost souls, winning them for Christ and planting new local churches.
Detailed History
On May 1, 1947, Zeral and Dorretta Brown arrived in the Dominican Republic to begin their missionary career. In the Fall of 1948, they founded the Dominican Baptist Church. But they didn't just limit their efforts to one town. Extensive evangelism was carried on in dozens of small villages and country areas by means of a sound truck. They believed strongly that the local church is the organism God has chosen to evangelize the world and disciple believers in this dispensation. So, the question was, how could they start churches in villages on property owned by huge sugar corporations which would not sell a square inch of land to anyone. Thus, Zeral began to design a Portable Chapel which could be built in sections (4' x 8' panels) in their backyard , trucked to a village, and erected on borrowed land. It would be portable in the sense that it could be dismantled and moved to another location. It would not be a permanent church. Rather it would be an intermediate meeting place between a house and a temple.
In 1956 they left the Dominican Republic and for the next four years held evangelistic campaigns in Spanish speaking countries, mostly in Cuba, but also in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the United States. Driven out of Cuba in 1960, they continued as free-lance evangelists in Old Mexico and on the border. In 1967 Zeral felt led to start churches in Mexico. God led him to Pueblo Nuevo, a little village about 44 miles east of Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon. Pueblo Nuevo is an ejido. That is, the land is owned by the government. So, once again he was faced with the problem of how to start a church on land that could not be bought. Then a little old grandmother loaned him a part of her lot and two young Mexicans built Portable Chapel #1. This was the beginning of sixteen chapels and numerous concrete block buildings in Mexico. Training Center #1, also called Mexico East, is located on the south side of Monterrey and has accommodations for 60 TIMErs. It is shared by the mother church, pastored by Juan Davila, for a growing number of national churches.
In 1990 the Browns moved to Salem, OR, where son-in-law Bruce Porter was pastoring their home church, First Baptist. The following year they visited the Dominican Republic to find that the work they had founded in 1948 had grown and multiplied. Now there are many trained young men wanting to preach the Gospel and start new churches. So, during the summer of 1992 Zeral and Dorretta led a group from Grace Fellowship in York, PA, and another group from Bibletown Community Church in Boca Raton, FL, in building Portable Chapel #17. This chapel, which was the first one to be built in the Dominican Republic, was to serve the congregation of Pastor Jacinto (Rudy) de la Cruz. Rudy had started a new church in Santo Domingo and the congregation had outgrown the carport where they were meeting and needed a large building. How ever, after the chapel was built, he had no place to put it. So, he graciously gave it to a small Baptist group in San Pedro de Macoris that had a large lot but no money to build. Later that summer, Rudy bought ten lots in Villa Mella, a new subdivision on the north side of Santo Domingo. TIME Ministries (as the ministry had come to be known) placed seven chapels on the grounds where teams could be hosted to continue supporting new pastors with chapels and ministry.
In August of 1996, Zeral Brown passed away, but Dorretta, realizing she still knew the language and had her supporting partners, decided to continue the mission of TIME. As pastor Rudy’s church continued to grow as well as TIME, it was decided to build a dedicated ministry center next door to Pastor Rudy’s church. Dorretta raised funds through prayer and simple letter writing. Construction began in 2003 and was completed in 2005. Over 100 short-TIMErs can be hosted now in one dedicated facility.
To date, an estimated 400 chapels have been built in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Both the TIME teams in Mexico and the DR have grown, consisting of both American and national missionaries. Our name has changed to TIME Missions, but our mission remains the same. So many teams are interested in serving, that TIME Missions is laying the groundwork for expansion, first in the DR, and potentially to other countries.
In June of 2024, Dorretta Brown joined her husband Zeral in eternity, just a few days short of her 101st birthday. She and Zeral left a legacy of ministry that continues to this day. We pray that we will be found worthy to continue that legacy wherever the Lord leads.
