By Grace Thornton
Correspondent, The Alabama Baptist
Rocque Waites grew up as a pastor’s kid in South Carolina. He went to college, got a business degree — and got into drugs.
“I was pretty heavily involved in trafficking cocaine,” he said.
But then he got saved, got married and went to seminary. Things were looking up.
Until he got divorced and found himself spiraling back into addiction.
“Eight years later I was in the woods running from the feds because I was manufacturing methamphetamine,” Waites said. “I served four years in prison.”
Re-entry support
And then for the final months of his sentence, he was sent to the PASCO home in Mobile.
That’s where everything changed.
PASCO — which stands for Physical And Spiritual Christian Outreach — serves as long-term support for people coming out of rehab or prison to help them get a strong foundation for re-entering normal life.
The men’s program was started nine years ago by Phillip Stanford, a member of Moffett Road Baptist Church, Mobile — himself a former addict.
“When PASCO started nine years ago, there was no other transition ministry for people coming out of rehab to help them start to rebuild relationships, get a work ethic and just generally prepare for life,” said Waites, who now serves as director of PASCO. “Phillip put together a program for men to rebuild their life and get stability and a firm foundation with Jesus at the center of it. There’s no way to walk free without Jesus at the center.”
Currently 23 men and eight women are a part of the program at PASCO’s new facility — but since the organization’s founding, nearly 400 people have gone through the program.
“They come through orders from the courts, from Alabama Department of Corrections Parole, from voluntary admissions via various drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs such as the Home of Grace, the Mission of Hope, Bradford, the Wings of Life, the City of Refuge and many more,” Waites said. “We have a really good success rate. And we have a passion about it because we see the benefit and the fruit in the men’s and women’s lives.”
PASCO has room for 28 men and 16 women currently but they’re preparing to double that capacity soon, Waites said. “We’ve got the space — all we need is a commercial kitchen that can feed that many people.”
It’s that side of things — the food preparation side — where Martha Maddox and a number of others have gotten plugged in over the years.
“I met Phillip at church a number of years ago and I saw the need and got busy,” said Maddox, a member of Moffett Road Baptist and PASCO board member.
Group effort
Maddox, a retired home economics teacher, said she wasn’t daunted by the idea of cooking for roughly 30. But she couldn’t do it herself every night of the week, so she developed a calendar for area churches, individuals and groups to provide meals for the residents at PASCO. Now every Monday through Friday the facility’s meals are covered.
“It’s the sweetest, most willing group of people I’ve ever seen. For instance, Dayspring Baptist Church delivers meals three Tuesdays of the month and Luke 4:18 Fellowship brings meals two Wednesdays,” said Maddox, noting that about a dozen area churches participate. “When we deliver food it’s a way for us to say ‘we love you and God loves you’ to those men and women.”
Making a difference
And now she’s working to help Waites write grants and raise money for the commercial kitchen he needs to run PASCO at full capacity.
“They could have 60 men if they could get that kitchen,” Maddox said. “I really feel like this will happen. God will provide.”
Waites said he knows the program is making a difference.
“If someone goes through this program, they’ve got a full year of having someone help them walk soberly, learn accountability, learn to walk with the Lord and learn to take responsibility,” he said. “We watch the Lord work in these men’s and women’s lives over the course of our nine-month program and stand amazed at the difference that the love of the Lord works in their lives.”
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