A Note from CFUM

This Advent Season, the congregation at West Des Moines UMC was challenged to give to our Christmas offering an amount equal to 1/4 of what they spent on friends and family. We raised nearly $22,000. The fund will be divided between Children and Family Urban Ministries (CFUM) in Des Moines and Strong Missions in Costa Rica. Below is a letter from Carmen Lampe Zeitler in response to the offering and it's potential to change lives here in Des Moines: 

"Children and Family Urban Ministries continues to be honored and grateful for the partnership of the congregation at the West Des Moines United Methodist Church. 

RaJon is a first grader who has for the past year and half brought his own matchless spirit to Children and Family Urban Ministries (CFUM).  I had dinner with RaJon at the Supper Club on an early January evening.  We talked about his teacher Ms. Schultz, who’s asked us for support with Rajon, and her hope that he would learn and grow this year, and complete and turn in his homework sheets.  He drummed a very fine beat on the napkin holder for a while, which he was quick to tell me was his beat and not one he learned from anyone else.  After he accidentally drank out of someone else’s cup we talked a little about germs.  When he got up and began to walk away from the table without picking up his tray, we talked about how important it is to pick up after ourselves.  All of that happened in not more than ten minutes at the dinner table.  Time spent with RaJon is always fast-paced.      

That ten minutes with RaJon is an apt metaphor for the work of CFUM.  In those ten minutes we covered the highlights of CFUM’s mission: to create a community to support the potential of children, youth, and families through educational success, healthy living, and community engagement.  We covered educational success (homework completion), healthy living (germs), community engagement (picking up after yourself – surely at the heart of community engagement), and most importantly—potential (making your own beat in the world).   

Your partnership provides the other most important aspect of the CFUM mission—a community to support the all-important potential in RaJon and so many others!  We are humbled and honored by your confidence in and contribution to the mission we share.

With deep gratitude,

Carmen Lampe Zeitler"