Our Team
THOMAS AND JENNIFER ATWATER (Wisconsin, USA)
Founders of 911 Life Ministries
In 1995, Tom and Jen were college students headed to Colombia to teach English as a second language in a small school in Cartegena. While they were strolling the cobble-stoned streets of the old city one evening, they saw a paper bag up ahead. As they approached it, ready to kick it out of their way, they saw to their horror that there was actually a young child sleeping inside!
They evaluated their options. Should they take him to their hacienda for the night? Would that possibly be even worse for him, knowing the comforts of a soft bed for one night? What else could they possibly do to help? SOMEONE had to help this child! Finally, understanding that there was nothing permanent they could do to help this child, nor the countless other street children they had seen begging on the streets during the day, they carefully tucked some money underneath him, said a prayer for his safety, and continued on their way, forever impacted by this experience.
Years later, when Tom and Jen were married with three small children of their own, living their version of the “American Dream,” whenever they would get a chance to rest and reflect, they would always come back to that small child sleeping on the streets. They would talk about how “someone” should do something about the street children of South America, and wonder if maybe they were that “someone.”
Gradually, year after year, the dream grew and the seed that had been planted in their hearts that summer evening in Cartagena took root and grew into a strong conviction that they were to move their family of five to Colombia, trusting God to work out the details.
In 2011, 16 years after the seed was sown in their hearts, Tom and Jen packed up their family and moved to Medellin, Colombia, to serve as Directors of a center for at-risk children and families in a hard-hit neighborhood. For the next seven years they worked diligently, increasing the number of children and families cared for to 220, and leaning on God to show them how to raise the center spiritually, financially and administratively.
During that time, a new, larger vision was growing in their hearts to open a full-time care center for at-risk mothers and their children, in which they would provide room and board, as well as emotional, psychological, spiritual and professional assistance to these families for a maximum period of two years, helping them to get on their feet and be able to sustain themselves and their families.
Finally, in early 2018 God told them it was time to hand the children’s center they had been directing over to a Colombian and start a new foundation…911 Life.
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