At the end of June the 22nd anniversary of the maiden voyage of the Freewinds will be celebrated aboard the ship.
After the event is held, videos of each of the four main nights are broadcast at events throughout the summer at Scientology Churches and Missions around the world. They contain important briefings by David Miscavige on what is going on in Scientology today, and what we can expect over the coming year.
Each year for the past several years, this has including briefings on the work of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers, and I'm sure this year will be no exception.
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program, which was created by L. Ron Hubbard in the 70s, has really taken off.
At the Volunteer Ministers blog you can get up to date on the work of the VMs in Haiti. What they have done there has literally saved lives.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers arrived in Haiti the first week after the earthquake in January, but new volunteers continue to arrive, and they are training Haitians in and around Port-au-Prince in Scientology technology who in turn are opening new groups all around the island.
The Church also sent a ship down with supplies, and this shows the arrival of the ship in P.A.P., being unloaded by a team of Scientologist VMs from about 15 nations including 100 Haitian nationals.
The Scientology Volunteer Ministers program was developed in 1976 by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard. In the wake of 9/11, David Miscavige greatly expanded the scope of the program, which now includes Goodwill Tours throughout the world.
As an American, September 11th rocked my world. It was the first time international influence personally penetrated into my somewhat insular life. In my lifetime, and for 200 years or so. there has been no foreign power on American soil.
The vision of those jets crashing into the World Trade Center is indelible for me. For most of us I'm sure.
I am personally so proud of the Volunteer Ministers who came from New York and to New York and who risked more than they knew to help the rescue workers go through the rubble and salvage what they could of thousands of lives.
9/11 had a profound effect on my Church. David Miscavige issued a challenge to all Scientologists to use this "wake up call" as a reason to step up their work to help their communities, their countries, raise the level of civilization around them, contribute in any way possible to help make this world a better place. Mr. Miscavige also honored the Scientology Volunteer Ministers of New York by awarding the church the funding for the full renovation of their 46th Street headquarters. David Miscavige also came to New York to dedicate the Church at its grand opening.
And this is really what launched the expansion of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers movement into a completely new realm of operation.
I am sure 9/11 had this effect on many people. If it woke us up to helping one another, that is the testament to the lives lost on that day, and their legacy for the future.
My friends are on the Freewinds at the Maiden Voyage. I can't wait to see the events myself. They are always so inspirational.
For one thing, as a Scientologist I am so proud of what we are doing in society, and David Miscavige does GREAT briefings on what's been going on over the past several months.
My favorite part, of course, is the Scientology Volunteer Ministers, but I love the news about new churches opening, the anti-drug program -- just about anything the church is doing today is pretty cool.
I have been thinking of joining one of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers goodwill tours. I like to think of them as Peace Corps on steroids (because with Scientology technology these volunteers can actually do something for people.)
The Scientology Volunteer Ministers who flew to Pisco to help in the aftermath of last month's earthquake did such a good job there. The administrative technology covered in the Scientology Handbook by L. Ron Hubbard is of enormous help in these kinds of situations. When the local infrastructure breaks down and people are not only confronted by the loss of their homes, their friends and family members, their livelihoods, their possessions and on top of that they are living in shelters with limited food and water and no privacy, it is a real help to have people who know how to organize the place, how to administer basic trauma relief, and how to put people to work, cleaning, serving and helping one another.
The team of VMs in Pisco included several veterans of other disasters and they were able to simply step in and take control of the shelters in Pisco, the town hardest hit by the earthquake.
This photo shows two of the VMs administering Scientology assists to emergency relief personnel.
In a recent international Scientology event David Miscavige described Volunteer Ministers as people who give unconditional help. It's really true, and Pisco was a real example of this.
I just had the opportunity to speak to two of the volunteers who left within 2 days of the disaster and only returned home this week. They both described the month they were in Peru as one of the most incredible experiences of their lives. They were getting hardly any sleep; they were living in the same terrible conditions that the victims of the disaster were living in; they experienced the death and loss firsthand. But the fact that they were able to really help people will remain with them the rest of their lives as one of the most important things they have ever done.
