We just welcomed six new Volunteer Ministers to the Japan team! Four are headed to the disaster zone and two will work from the Tokyo headquarters.
We are also pleased to report that a new Volunteer Minister Logistics Base has now officially been established in Tokyo and provides working space for 30 Volunteer Ministers to handle logistics for the disaster areas. Volunteer Ministers arriving in Tokyo can settle and brief at the Base before deploying to the North of Japan.
Last week two Volunteer Ministers vans left Tokyo to deliver sleeping bags and mats to shelters in Onagawa and remain in Northern Japan for services. Both are now in high demand daily to deliver food and water to remote shelters around the city of Sendai.
Onagawa
Life seems to be starting up again here the last few days. When we came about 10 days ago, many people spent most of the day in bed. The feeling was one of grief.
On Friday we cleaned out the shelter building and regorganized spaces for each family! Everyone participated and we created the most amazing village out of cardboard in the shelter hall.
Today we got the elementary schools going again and also here life is finally beginning again.
Watari
Yesterday, 2 April 2011, our Volunteer Ministers in the Myiagi Prefecture split into two groups. One went to a shelter that had been set up in the Osaka Elementary and Junior High and the other went to Yoshida Elementary and Watari Elementary schools. In the past 48 hours we helped 2,026 people in these shelters, gave 617 assists* and trained 64 people in Volunteer Minister technology.
One man who was very upset received an assist. In recounting what happened to him when the tsunami hit, he suddenly began to chuckle. He realized, he said, “I can’t really do anything but laugh about it!”
One elderly woman received an assist in Shishiori Junior High School and told the Volunteer Minister with a huge smile on her face that she felt like she could “float down the stairs.”
A Volunteer Minister came across a boy in the shelter who looked bored, so she taught him how to deliver assists. The next thing she knew, he had helped four people with assists.
Also our translator Peter learned how to deliver assists and he was completely blown away that he could use this to help people. He’d never done anything like it before.
Kesennuma
Three young Volunteer Ministers went to Hashikami School in Kesennuma City and met with a teacher who welcomed them and invited them to deliver a lecture on Assists to 25 students. The students were interested throughout and at the lecture’s end, they grouped in seven Volunteer Minister teams and first delivered assists to each other and then to 175 refugees.
The students were amazed at what they were able to do with assist technology, especially when one woman who hadn’t been walking began doing so after an assist. The look on the student’s face was priceless. The brand new Volunteer Minister had only just learned about assists herself.
---
*Assist: L. Ron Hubbard developed numerous applications of his discoveries on the mental and spiritual aspects of a person's physical difficulties, one of them being the technology of Assists. An Assist is an action undertaken to help a person confront his physical difficulties, overcome trauma, ease discomfort and speed recovery. For more information go to: www.volunteerministers.org/solutions/assists.html.
