Volunteer Ministers in Thailand are carrying on with relief to victims of the worst flooding to hit that country in 50 years.
While food waters are receding in many parts of the country, 16 central and four southern provinces are still affected, and flash floods and landslides again hit some of the southeastern provinces this week.
Distributing food and supplies to those in shelters and by boat to those stranded in their homes by the floods, the Volunteer Ministers from the Church of Scientology Mission, working in collaboration with other volunteer groups and agencies, have helped some 11,000 people.
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!
The Work of the Volunteer Ministers Disaster Response in Ishinomaki, Japan, Continued
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 Goodwill Tour Bringing Positive Change to Mali
It is said that when Sultan Mansa Musa made his pilgrimage from Mali to Mecca in the 14th century, he brought with him so much gold and treasure that for centuries the legend prevailed that the roofs of Timbuktu were covered with gold and its rivers ran over beds of precious metal—a far cry from the Mali of 2011, with 73 percent of its 14.5 million people living on less than a dollar a day.
The courses and seminars of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tour in Mali provide tools to help overcome economic and educational barriers and their oppressive consequences.
A Mali student recently completed all 19 Volunteer Ministers courses at the Tour’s bright yellow tent, and wrote:
“These courses are the life and the love that a person in public life or a civil servant cannot do without. …[They] have given me the tools not only to mobilize people, but to organize them to perform the actions that lead to success. I am very thankful for having had the opportunity to learn basics which can be used to make dreams come true."
The last decade has been one of the most turbulent in our history. Opposing ideologies, violent revolutions and a frail social economic structure have subjected more than one-third of the world’s population to oppression, poverty and brutal human rights violations. Terrorism and a global economic crisis rips at the very fabric of society, propagating a mindset governed by hysteria, fear and anxiety.
However, emotional stress doesn’t halt at the borders of war-ravaged nations. Right at home the epidemics multiply—from drug abuse, delinquency and broken homes, to illiteracy, unemployment and the stress attendant to these problems. Under these conditions, civic administrators and human services personnel bear a tremendous burden.
But there are answers—real ones that work—delivered by Volunteer Ministers whenever and wherever needed with remarkable results. These answers come from the greater body of Scientology technology by L. Ron Hubbard and are intended for people of all beliefs.
Over 200,000 strong and spanning every continent of Earth, Volunteer Ministers work directly with community leaders, officials, support personnel and citizens to bring order and real help no matter the situation.
The Volunteer Ministers also reach out with traveling Cavalcades, bringing their help into major cities and communities throughout the world. Visiting a new city each month, these Cavalcades contact thousands at a time.
Inside the familiar yellow tents, anyone can get one-on-one assistance to address whatever troubles they might be facing.
While beyond their daily work in addressing societal ills, the Volunteer Ministers are among the first to arrive when disaster strikes. Trained to respond to emergency situations, they provide whatever is needed to immediately alleviate suffering and bring order quickly. And because the technology they apply is simple and effective, they quickly train others so they too can provide help.
With their organizational skills and ability to bring order, as well as their effective help to victims and emergency personnel, thousands have joined their ranks and Volunteer Ministers have emerged as one of the largest independent relief forces on Earth.
They have also become a global force delivering effective solutions in disaster zones that don’t make the headlines: in homes and schoolrooms, businesses and neighborhoods. They are on call on a 24/7 international Volunteer Minister Hotline.
Anyone, of any belief, who wants to do something to improve conditions around them may become a Volunteer Minister by learning the simple techniques offered by the free courses on this site. Equipped with these solutions, a Volunteer Minister can help build a better world by restoring order, kindness and decency wherever needed.
The UN Human Rights Commission has named Haiti as one of the key countries where refugees is an issue. This weekend is the UN World Refugee Day.
Scientology volunteers in Haiti are not just distributing food and water in the IDP camps, they are training people using the Scientology Handbook, to help them survive there and build something better.
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.
