In Ishinomaki, Japan, where 29,000 lost their homes last March from the earthquake and tsunami, the Scientology Disaster Response Team continues its work providing any service needed to make life a bit easier for those affected.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers visited a home for the elderly to provide companionship and Scientology assists—techniques developed by L. Ron Hubbard that address the spiritual and emotional factors in stress and trauma.
Labels: japan, Scientology Volunteer Minister, Scientology Volunteer Ministers, Volunteer Minister
Australian Scientologist Peter Dunn has served as a Scientology Volunteer Minister in Haiti, Queensland, and Japan. At 4 a.m. on March 11, 2011, the shock wave from the magnitude 9 earthquake that triggered a 30-foot tsunami off the northeast coast of Japan reached Australia—not as a physical blast but rather as a summons for Scientologist Peter Dunn to return to Japan and help in her time of need.
Dunn, a native of Adelaide who lives in Sydney, had spent the last few months volunteering in the December 2010 Queensland floods, helping residents of Grantham, the town hardest hit, clean up their homes and neighborhoods.
Having lived in Japan for several years when he served as a staff member at the Church of Scientology of Tokyo, Dunn’s strong affinity for the Japanese people and his sense of duty prompted his departure for Japan.
Described by Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan as “the biggest crisis Japan has encountered in the 65 years since the end of World War II," the earthquake and tsunami left more than 20,000 dead or missing, causing an estimated 16.9 trillion yen ($220 billion) in damage and triggering the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
Dunn, who also served for several months in Haiti following the January 2010 earthquake, described the scene he encountered in Japan as very different from what he experienced in Port-au-Prince. Although the destruction was worse and more widespread than in Haiti, Japan rebounded, able to quickly leverage far more resources in the relief effort.
As is the custom of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers, on arriving in Japan they asked what was needed and wanted and set about providing what was asked. They distributed food and water, worked on the search and rescue operation, and manned shelters. They even arranged bicycle donations so junior high school students could travel over roads still closed to cars and trucks to deliver food and supplies to ill, injured, and elderly residents in and around the city of Kesennuma.
While he was prepared to take on any task needed, Dunn is a Scientology spiritual counselor or auditor—“one who listens,” from the Latin audire, “to hear or listen.” So his main function in Japan was to provide Scientology assists. These are techniques developed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard that relieve stress and emotional trauma and can speed physical recovery by addressing the spiritual factors in illness and injuries.
“At one shelter, a lady who couldn’t walk when we started rose after a five-minute assist feeling like she wanted to run,” says Dunn. “Another elderly woman was deeply disturbed and told me she expected to die soon. A week later, after daily assists, she had regained her will to live and her enthusiasm and she was bringing life and optimism back to the entire room of 30 survivors in the shelter where she was staying.”
Dunn is proud that in each disaster where he has served, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers have addressed the task at hand with industry, willingness and persistence.
“It has been my honor to help hospital-bound amputees in Haiti, polite and gentle Japanese pensioners in homeless shelters, and rough, tough Aussie farmers,” says Dunn. “And each of them know by our actions that we have simply come to help.”
Introduced to
Scientology in 1974 when a friend gave him a copy of
Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought by L. Ron Hubbard, Dunn, now 61, found answers he’d long sought about the meaning and purpose of life. What he appreciates most from what he has gained in four decades as a Scientologist is the ability and opportunity to help.
The Scientology Volunteer Minister program was initiated by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard in 1976. There are now hundreds of thousands of people trained in the skills of a Volunteer Minister across 185 nations.
News about the Scientology Volunteer Minister at Blog.VolunteerMinisters.Org!Labels: australia, disaster response, haiti, japan, L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, volunteer ministers
One volunteer speaks of her experience on the Ishinomaki Volunteer Ministers Team and the effect it has had on her life.
It has been six months since I came to the disaster area. I have been working in the Ishinomaki team ever since.
There are always some foreign volunteers working with us, which can cause some troubles due to the differences in language and culture, particularly because I couldn’t speak English. Thanks to this team, however, I have learned to understand enough English to get by. I call it my “Disaster Overseas Education,” or “studying abroad in disaster areas.”
Many VMs of various backgrounds came to the disaster area—it was a team of unique and dynamic people.
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Ironically, one thing I gained through this disaster was a better relationship with my father.
I always wanted to improve my relationship with my family, and I wanted to balance family with doing much more for society and humanity.
When the disaster struck I accomplished the second goal—I completely immersed myself in the Volunteer Minister activities. But at a certain point I realized I hadn’t spoken with my parents in quite some time.
I live in Nagano Prefecture, 240 km from my parents in Kyoto, and it sometimes happens that I don’t contact them for quite a while. So when I returned temporarily to Nagano from the disaster zone, I called my parents, only to learn that my 70-year-old father had retired in April.
I have never been able to talk casually with my father, and we rarely speak much when I call. So after talking over the phone, I wrote my parents a letter.
It had always been difficult for me to express my love to them—I even had the idea that I had hated my father but I expressed my gratitude to them—especially to my father—for working to provide for us for such a long time.
I was so surprised when I received a post card from my father in reply. I have written many letters to him—this is the first time he ever replied.
The post card was tightly filled with characters apologizing to me for having acted out of selfishness.
I was so happy to read it, I cried.
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The need for help in the disaster zone continues.
Please join us in our Volunteer Ministers activities. There is a free shuttle bus from Tokyo. You will see what a positive influence you can have on people and society.
Scientology Volunteer Ministers in action at the Scientology VM Blog
Labels: disaster response, japan, Scientologist, Scientology, volunteer ministers
17 April 2011: Report from Scientology Volunteer Ministers Heasquarters in Tokyo, Japan:
Today we helped 2,673 people and delivered 219 assists in Onagawa, Ishinomaki and Kesennuma. While we are expanding and sending teams to assess the damage and the state of the shelters in areas we have not yet visited, we continue delivering assist and helping the evacuees in any way we can.
The head of the Meiyukan shelter in Ishinomaki, who has gained a great deal from the assist the Volunteer Ministers have given him, asked us to teach him how to deliver assists himself, so he can start his own Volunteer Minister group. He and several of his friends learned the procedure and began giving assists to one another.
In Kesennuma, we arrived at a shelter today to a warm “good morning” from several evacuees who seem to be growing much more cheerful as the days go by. Our arrival was announced over the loud speaker in the school-turned-shelter so no one would miss out on receiving assists while we were there.
Several evacuees told one of our Volunteer Ministers that the food at the shelters was tasteless—weak miso soup, white rice and boiled vegetables. The Volunteer Minister promptly called Tokyo Volunteer Minister headquarters to arrange for some tastier dishes. The headquarters contacted a man who owns a supply company in the city, who donated a set of meals to the shelter that very day. We were able to distribute the meals to grateful evacuees along with other needed supplies such as diapers, shampoo and vitamins.
Some of our Volunteer Ministers have now been invited to stay at the Kaizo-ii Buddhist temple in Kesennuma, after the chief priest learned of the work we are doing to help the people of the area.
Labels: japan, Scientology, Scientology Volunteer Minister, Scientology Volunteer Ministers
Tokyo/Sendai 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.
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*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.
Labels: japan, Scientologist, Scientology, Scientology Volunteer Minister, Volunteer Minister
