Even though Tom and Connie Jones met at church camp, it became clear that they actually came from very different backgrounds. It was this difference that would make their life together literally life-changing for thousands of teens in the years to come.
Connie was raised in an average, middle class home in Tulsa. Across town, Tom was living a very different existence. His father was an alcoholic who abandoned the family when Tom was young. Tom’s alcoholic mother remarried and the new stepfather was also an alcoholic and viciously abusive to Tom and his three brothers. “My stepdad’s idea of a family dinner was holding a 57 magnum to our heads while we ate,” remembers Tom. “We would run to our neighbor’s house and hide in their basement when my stepdad would come looking for us. The crazy thing is that I thought this was normal until I met Connie’s family.” A few years went by and word came that Tom’s biological father had died homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.
Tom and Connie married young and became youth pastors. Eventually their ministry moved them to Florida. “I don’t look back on my life and see it as a horrible thing, but what it did was create a passion in us to let at-risk kids know that there are options,” said Tom. “We created Harbor House to create alternative opportunities for kids struggling with abuse and drugs and provide them with someplace safe when they are experiencing chaos at home.” The Joneses purchased an 11-bedroom home that became the first alternative Harbor House for teenage boys.
“I learned a lot in the first two years,” said Connie. “Because I had no reference, I learned to really love unconditionally. When you’ve got these boys yelling at you and calling you names…those two years were defining for me… I learned to love, not for what they did, but to love them for who they were.” It would be natural to assume that there was no time for their relationship, but Connie and Tom found a way. “Although there were 13 boys in the house (11 Harbor House residents and their own two sons), we always went on a weekly date,” explains Connie. “Sometimes, because of a lack of money, it might have just been a walk in the park or a long drive, but we would have a weekly date regardless…it was sacred time to us. It still is.”
Eventually Harbor House opened several locations around the U.S. for boys and girls, and is now an international organization. In 2007, Tom accepted an offer to run the Oklahoma City Rescue Mission, in part to honor the memory of his biological father. Connie and their two sons continue to run Harbor House International.