CHUMS History

(How a family discussion led to all this...)

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CHUMS (Children United Morally and Spiritually) is an interfaith youth group dedicated to education, understanding, and acceptance of each other’s faiths amongst today’s youth. The three families that make up CHUMS represent three different faiths; Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Our origins sprang from a discussion of the Biblical story of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac. Abraham’s dying wish was that his two feuding sons would come to together to bury him in peace. The timing of this discussion happened to coincide with yet another news bulletin of more violence in the Middle East. It struck us that, here we are, thousands of years later, and Abraham’s descendants (Jews and Christians spiritual descendants of Isaac, Muslims spiritual descendants of Ishmael) are still fighting in many parts of the world. We started wondering isn’t there a way for us all to recognize how much we have in common and find a better way? The Peterson children commented that since children seem to make friends easily and don’t get hung up on differences in cultures and religions the way some adults do, maybe we could try to form a group where kids of different faiths could work together for peace. The seeds were planted. The next step was to place a phone call to the Rabbi of the Synagogue to which the Peterson’s belong asking for suggestions on who could help us find a way to contact a Christian and Muslim family who might share similar values. Within a few months we had connected with The Fackler Family and The Siddiqee Family and our first meeting was in February of 2001.

CHUMS meets about once a month in each other’s homes. Since the focus of the group is education leading to acceptance, one of our primary projects is to discuss and compare Bible/Qur'an stories shared by all three faiths. Unfortunately, the world’s attention is drawn to the differences of these religions by the media’s inevitable focus on the violence. However, we believe that the followers of these religions share the same morals and values and that by focusing on the spirit of our religions instead of the differences in scripture, we can find a better way for today’s youth.

The idea for the interfaith card project was born shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The kids in the group wanted to find a way to do something to contribute to the victims that would demonstrate the spirit of kids of different faiths working together to accomplish a goal. In a very short time, they sold 5000 cards and raised $3,000. At first this was intended to be a short-term project, but motivated by success, the kids decided they wanted to make this an ongoing project. They realized the cards became an excellent way to draw attention to the group and it gave them an opportunity to communicate their ideas of education, understanding and acceptance.
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