One of the best stories in Volunteer Minister lore is the story of the VMs that landed in Southeast Asia in the wake of the tsunami. Their purpose, they said, was to provide whatever help was needed. The public servants they talked to were completely overwhelmed. They weren't able to articulate any real practical need except one: What to do with the dead bodies. The beaches were lined with them, and the potential health hazard was enormous as the days ticked by.

The VMs immediately arranged for refrigeration in portable housing units, and began moving and cataloging the bodies for later attempts to identify them and process them.

The story is inspiring. Read it on this page.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers On Call in Budapest

This story showed up on the Volunteer Ministers web site yesterday.

With the worst floods in recent history predicted for Hungary, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers of the Church of Scientology of Budapest mobilized their disaster relief team last week to assist local officials to cope with the crisis and prevent it becoming a disaster.

The first call for help came the next day. Not far from Budapest, in the town of Szentendre, the Danube River was rising faster than anyone had ever seen. Unless immediate action was taken, the entire town would be submerged by the torrent. Thirty Volunteer Ministers rushed to the scene to help reinforce the river banks with sandbags and transport food and other supplies to the hundreds of firemen and other volunteers working to protect the town.

The Volunteer Ministers continued with the relief effort till the immediate danger from the flood was handled later that day, and remain on call to jump back in if any further help is needed.

Hungarian VMs were involved in helping with floods in years past as well.. There's an article on this in the Scientology Effective Solutions web site on the Volunteer Ministers.