Davenport ministry wants to help offer second chances

DAVENPORT (AP) — The first thing the Rev. Tom Thomas will tell you is he’s a felon who understands the struggles of addiction.

The second thing he will tell you is how important second chances are. He is taking a second approach to life, and members of his congregation are, too.

Thomas, 57, and his wife, Stephanie, 58, are the pastors of Place of Refuge Ministries, Davenport.

“Our goal is to walk with people and assist in the process of restoring, rebuilding and reconnecting them back to God, family and friends and their community,” he said.

The congregation of about 75 members includes people who have abused various substances, gang members, domestic-abuse survivors and abusers both, people experiencing homelessness, folks who are unemployed and underemployed, single-parent families and ex-offenders.

Most of them, Tom Thomas says, have improved their situations when they blend their trust in God with a determination to succeed.

Now “Everybody who needs a job, has a job,” Stephanie Thomas said.

After Place of Refuge Ministries began in November 2014, Tom Thomas has known former gang members to return to school to become licensed electricians. Struggling single mothers have become phlebotomists. Families experiencing homelessness have found housing. Ex-offenders have found employment. Truant young people have returned to school and plan to attend college.

Members of the congregation learn to be productive members of the community by attending Bible studies, life-skills classes, after-school mentoring, counseling and support groups, he said.

“Not only are they given tools to improve their living situations, they are given opportunities to use their skills,” he said.

The new worship center going up on the corner of Sixth and Brown streets will combine the Thomases’ pastoral living arrangement and the church into one location — a second chance for the refurbished home attached to the sanctuary area and a second chance for the general neighborhood.

Once renovated, the house at 518 Brown St. — near Café on Vine, which provides meals for those in need — will be used for worship, parsonage, counseling, support groups and life-skills classes. (In the meantime, Stephanie Thomas conducts Bible-study classes live from 6-7 p.m. Tuesday on the Place of Refuge Facebook page.)

Currently, the congregation meets at 321 W. Eighth St., which Place of Refuge rents.

Stephanie Thomas grew up in the church. Her mother, the late Rev. Rena M. Dawkins, of Rock Island, was the pastor of Apostolic Truth Temple, Rock Island, when she died in 2006. Both Thomases were licensed and ordained by Aenon Bible College of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World.

Their ministry, Stephanie Thomas says, is a Pentecostal ministry.

“Our ministry is full of second chances,” Stephanie Thomas said. “This building is a second chance.”

After they broke ground in October of 2019, curious neighbors have stopped in to say hello.

“Part of restoring the building is reconnecting it into the community,” Stephanie Thomas said. “We want to go back to the community where we came from. That’s the whole purpose of putting the ministry here.”

Tom Thomas said they wanted the church in an area with needs — an area that needed some attention.

“We’re going to be able to provide for (neighbors) some new outlooks on life — a little bit of hope,” he said. “We’re not afraid of crime and so forth.”

“Somebody has to think about people who are here,” she said. “It’s not just people in better neighborhoods that need God.”

“When you feed the poor, you lack nothing,” he said.

Thomas, who says he has been mentored by other pastors and people of faith along the way, says the member-supported nonprofit ministry is not funded by an outside entity.

And Thomas, who also works for JC Landscape & Maintenance, Davenport, says commercial banker Andy Erpelding of Quad-City Bank & Trust was more than a financial adviser.

“Andy turned out to be more of a friend,” Tom Thomas said. “He was the man that calmed the waters.”

Erpelding “bought into their mission within the first five minutes of meeting Tom,” he said. He reviewed various versions of the project with the pastors.

He volunteered to teach financial-literacy sessions at the church. His goal is to help people manage checking accounts, and eventually achieve home ownership.

“The sky’s the limit,” he said.

The Thomases also give credit to the Ecumenical Housing Development Group, which helped the ministry secure the property.

“Streamline Architects brought it to life,” Tom Thomas said.

While they talk about the ministry, both pastors think of more people and organizations who helped.

“This is not about me,” Tom Thomas said. “This is about what God will do when you trust Him. This is all about God. He placed the people we needed on board.