Providing Effective Help Anywhere and Everywhere

In answer to escalating crime and violence through the latter 1960s and early 1970s, L. Ron Hubbard founded the Volunteer Minister program. It was designed to provide practical tools for engendering understanding and compassion. Moreover, those tools were expressly conceived for use by Scientologists and non-Scientologists alike. Thus was born a broad-based movement of individuals from all walks of life dedicated to providing on-site assistance to communities around the world.

Through the last 30 years, Scientology Volunteer Ministers have provided aid and emergency services at more than 128 worst-case disaster sites. Today, they are among the world’s most recognized independent relief organizations, and have trained tens of thousands of new volunteers on their methods of bringing help in the worst of times and conditions.

As L. Ron Hubbard wrote, "A Scientology Volunteer Minister is a person who helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by helping restore purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others. A Scientology Volunteer Minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence."

Volunteer Ministers live by the motto that “Something can be done about it.”

More about the Scientology Volunteer Ministers in video and text on Scientology.org.

Scientology Commended by Haitian Ambassador to the United States

In a letter presented to the President of the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, DC, on March 2, Haitian Ambassador Raymond A. Joseph expressed “deep appreciation” for the work of the Volunteer Ministers of the Churches of Scientology Disaster Response.

In a letter presented to the President of the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, DC, on March 2, Haitian Ambassador Raymond A. Joseph expressed “deep appreciation” for the work of the Volunteer Ministers of the Churches of Scientology Disaster Response.

“You all have remained with us daily here at the Embassy, working with our staff and with the members and volunteers of the Greater Washington DC Haiti Relief Committee, giving us support in our time of great grief and confusion, using the Assists developed by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Scientology religion,” the Ambassador wrote in his letter. “All that you have done and your plans for helping in the longer term will most certainly help us and our people to regain and improve our standing in the world.”

For two months, since the 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti, the Church has continued to provide assistance to the Haitian community while more than 200 Scientologists from the United States, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, Russia, Japan and other countries have served as Volunteer Ministers in Port-au-Prince. Many Volunteer Ministers who served from one to three weeks in Haiti are returning for longer periods--several months or more--to help in longer-range programs vital to the full recovery of the country.

The first responders provided support in hospitals and clinics to medical teams and delivered food and water to IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps and orphanages. Now, with medical personnel having dealt with the most serious injuries, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers are concentrating on construction, setting up sanitation facilities and water purification systems, training disaster response specialists, and providing the local population with Scientology Assists, procedures developed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard that help the individual overcome stress and trauma.

Having sponsored four charter flights that brought medical personnel, Volunteer Ministers and medical supplies to Port-au-Prince, the Church is now sending a ship with more than 160 tons of supplies to Haiti. The Hornbeam, a 896-ton former US Coast Guard ship and icebreaker, with fuel and other costs provided by the Church of Scientology and its members, will carry four pallets of wood stoves and 60 tons of wood pellets donated by the Children and Families Global Development Fund, Inc., a charity founded by Ms. Lola Poisson Joseph, wife of Haitian Ambassador Joseph. It will also be carrying an ambulance for the Port-au-Prince General Hospital and 110 more tons medical and other supplies to go to non-profit aid groups in Haiti. The Hornbeam is scheduled to sail to Haiti in the next days.

Scientology Volunteer Minister Joava Good: “Haiti made the Indonesia tsunami, Katrina and 9/11 look small by comparison.”

Utah—Sandy resident, Joava Good says “Haiti made the Indonesia tsunami, Katrina and 9/11 look small by comparison.” In a presentation to the Sandy City Citizen Corps Council Thursday, March 11, entitled Church of Scientology Disaster Relief, she will share eight lessons learned in Haiti that can make all the difference in any future disaster. Good, a member of the Draper City Emergency and Advisory committee for the past four years calls Haiti “a real eye-opener” and “the worst catastrophe we’ve ever worked on.”

When she heard about the Haiti earthquake on January 12, Good contacted the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Disaster Response Coordinator in Los Angeles and was soon engaged in the extraordinary challenges of getting vitally needed medical personnel, supplies and Volunteer Ministers to Haiti. “It was daunting,” said Good. “Port-au-Prince was decimated—no power, no communications systems, no landing lights on the runway, only one runway open and that one in awful shape, all the planes were parked in the dirt, and no civilian flights were landing.”

Good called on her 23 years as a travel agent and travel agency owner to pull off the task. She found a company to fly first responders to Haiti at cost—a private aviation company provided the planes and the Church of Scientology paid for the fuel and expenses of disaster response personnel going on those flights.

With hundreds of thousands of Haitians injured, and countless lives depending on immediate medical care, the highest priority for Good and the Volunteer Minister team was to fill the planes with medical professionals and smaller support teams of Scientology Volunteer Ministers. Good put out a call for doctors, nurses and EMTs and the response was immediate. Dr. Edouard Hazel of the Association of Haitian Physicians Abroad said he had 65 doctors ready to leave at once. The Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps answered with a team of volunteers ready go, and nurses, sanitation specialists and a telecommunications specialist signed on as well. “Seventy percent of the passengers on our first charter flight were medical professionals,” said Good. The remaining seats were filled by Scientology Volunteer Ministers, trained in organizational skills that enabled the doctors to provide their life-saving skills once in Haiti.

Scientology Founder, L. Ron Hubbard, who also created the Volunteer Ministers program, gave it the motto “Something can be done about it.” “We live that motto, and it is really true,” said Good. “When one of our charter planes was leaving Haiti, we ‘rescued’ a group of doctors who had been stranded at the Port-au-Prince airport for 48 hours, flying them back to the United States on our return flight. One of them, a chief of surgery, asked me why the Church of Scientology was doing this. I told him our motto, and he understood. This is what we do. We fill in the gaps. You can operate on somebody and save his life—we provide support with anything you need in the hospital and give you a ride home. We find out what’s needed and wanted and that’s what we do.”

Good is the Utah Representative for the Churches of Scientology Disaster Response and special adviser to the National Director, Rev. Sue Taylor. Good is also a member of VOAD (Volunteers Organizations Active in Disasters), she is FEMA, Red Cross, and CERT trained, and is herself a CERT trainer. She has been an active Scientology Volunteer Minister for more than 30 years.

Scientology Volunteers Help Victims of Sumatra Earthquake

Scientology Volunteer Ministers from Australia help Sumatra recover from the magnitude 7.9 earthquake Sept. 30. Their story continues.

The team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers who traveled to Sumatra to help those whose lives were shattered by the September 30 earthquake carried on their work in the city of Padang and outlying villages. After spending their first day providing assistance at a shelter and local hospital, the team headed out to the villages that suffered the greatest impact from the quake.

They woke at dawn to get to the mountain villages before traffic on the overcrowded roads made travel impossible. All along the way they were struck by the beauty of the countryside and the stark counterpoint of devastation: every house they passed was damaged if not completely destroyed—walls missing, windows shattered.

All along the route, they saw people camped out beside their ruined homes. Unwilling to abandon their possessions but afraid to go back inside, they had set up house in tents where they carried on as best they could.

The Scientology Volunteer Ministers arrived at a makeshift, unofficial camp where many families had gathered. The volunteers stopped to help, first by distributing food they had filled their car with before leaving the town; next by showing the families how to deliver Scientology Assists, procedures developed by L. Ron Hubbard that provide relief by addressing the emotional and spiritual factors in stress, trauma, illness and injury.

Continuing up the mountain road they came to a refugee camp where government personnel and volunteers helped them unload the supplies they had brought.

The Volunteer Ministers walked through the camp, finding out what the refugees most needed. When they described Scientology Assists, many among the homeless not only wanted to experience them but also wanted to learn to deliver them so they could help one another. And that is exactly what they did. The change in the tone of the camp was immediate and striking, as it transformed the atmosphere from worry and sorrow to optimism and hope: so many smiles, so many people doing better.

As more people received their Assists the word spread and crowds grew. Police and military personnel came to see what was going on and they too lined up to receive Assists. The results were so dramatic the official in charge invited the Scientology Volunteer Ministers to place their banner in front of camp headquarters so everyone would know they could come there for help.

After many hours at the camp, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers headed back to Padang, promising to return. But their work was far from over for the day. They returned to the hospital where they had worked the day before, where they gave Scientology Assists to those they had helped and new patients as well.

That day, rescue workers found a child who had been buried under debris for two days. Her body was a mass of bruises and open wounds, broken bones and gangrene. Frantic, she didn’t know where she was; she thought she was still trapped in the rubble. Her screams of “Help me, help me, get me out of here” filled the ward. In her efforts to free herself she had tried to rip the IV drip out of her arm and nurses had tied her arms to the bed.

The Scientology Volunteer Ministers realized the child needed a Locational Assist. Shock tends to rivet a person’s attention in past painful or distressing incidents. Locational Assists help orient a person in his or her current environment so the relief trauma victims can experience from this kind of assist is often quite dramatic.

The little girl soon realized where she was, but her pain was so intense she was still beside herself. The Volunteer Minister continued to help her for several hours, giving her various Scientology Assists, procedures which have come to be known as “spiritual first-aid.”

Gradually, the little girl began to relax. She stopped screaming and flailing and she finally drifted off to sleep—her first sleep since she was rescued and probably since the earthquake struck. Her brother, at her side since the rescue workers found her, learned how to give her Assists so he could carry on helping her.

Promising to return the following day, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers took their leave at the end of a grueling but rewarding day.

When he created the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program in 1976, L. Ron Hubbard wrote: “A Volunteer Minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence. Rather, he is trained to handle these things and help others achieve relief from them and new personal strength as well.” The Scientology Volunteer Ministers serving in Sumatra truly live up to this standard.

For more information on the Scientology Volunteer Ministers visit their web site at www.volunteerministers.org.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers Help Samoa Recover from Tsunami

A team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers is helping Samoa recover from the tsunami that hit the island early Tuesday, September 29. The tidal waves carried entire villages out to sea and killed at least 140.

An 8.0 earthquake 120 miles off the coast jolted people awake in Samoa at 6:48 that morning. Ten minutes later the first of four 15- to 20-foot-high waves pounded the shore and surged inland, destroying everything in their path.

Alerted to the disaster, Scientologists from Sydney, Australia, flew to the devastated island. There, they joined a team of Samoans who trained to be Volunteer Ministers in 2008 when the Scientology Volunteer Ministers South Pacific Goodwill Tour was in that country. They are working together to help local officials provide basic services for several thousand survivors living in emergency shelters since the disaster occurred.

The Scientology Volunteer Ministers have set up their bright yellow tent as a headquarters for their relief activities. There, at shelters and in villages throughout the island, they provide Scientology Assists—simple procedures developed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard that help people recover from the emotional and spiritual effects of trauma, illness and injury.

“Our Scientology Assists are the ’spiritual first-aid’ people need in a disaster,” said Mathew Andrews, leader of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers South Pacific Goodwill Tour who is coordinating the Volunteer Ministers disaster relief in Samoa. “People who are grieving, in pain or fixated on the tragedy become extroverted and bright and start planning again for the future. We helped a man who was in pain, struggling to walk. Today we saw him in town. He was smiling and walking easily and came up to me to shake my hand.”

For more information or to join the relief effort in Samoa contact the Volunteer Ministers Consultant at vm@volunteerministers.org. To learn more about the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program visit their web site at www.volunteerministers.org or the Scientology site.

Straight Answers Needed

The answers to so many of the problems that surround us in society are as close to you as your local Scientology Volunteer Minister, who has been called upon time and again to bring effective help and practical solutions to their fellow man, whether it be for a national crisis or a personal one. >>more

Today I spoke to a guy whose life was a wreck. He has been out of work for two years, sponging off his elderly mother. Where she should be able to live out her life secure in the knowledge that her son can make it on his own when she's gone, with her son helping her if she needs the assistance, he's taking the money from her that she needs to live comfortably.

He's not a bad guy -- just week and incapable. So how does the Volunteer Ministers program fit in? Within the chapters of the
Scientology Handbook are real solutions for the trap he's gotten himself into, to get his integrity back, get him productive and winning at a job, and even able to learn new skills in a brand new area.

Scientology Handbook

The Scientology Handbook is the textbook of the Scientology Volunteer Minister. It's pretty incredible that this one volume could contain so much truth, so much help, so much knowledge.

It is a handbook, and contains enough information on various important subjects that anyone can pick it up and use it to help someone.

If you know someone who is strung out on drugs and can't kick it, you can help them with the chapter on drugs, which provides simple and effective things you can do to help someone withdraw.

If you know someone whose marriage or relationship is on the rocks or heading for them, you can pick up the Marriage chapter and use the information there to salvage it (or at least help both members of the marriage or relationship part amicable --which is extremely important if there are kids involved.

And if you want some help, you can find a volunteer minister at the Scientology Volunteer Ministers web site, where there is an online locator.

Scientology Handbook Helps with Painless Withdrawal from Drugs

The Scientology Handbook is the text book Scientology Volunteer Ministers are trained on and use in their work. It's a compilation of various works of L. Ron Hubbard that are geared to be able to help people with the most common problems people

It's a pretty remarkable book.

Here's just one example.

One of the "hardest" things to do is to withdraw from a bad drug habit, right? I've worked with junkies and alcoholics and it is a pretty awful problem. They go through so much pain. But one of the chapters of the Scientology Handbook has a very simple description of how to help someone with a nearly painless withdrawal. I've used it. It's like magic. (It's not in the online version but you can order the book online or get it from most libraries).

There are so many ways Scientology helps people live better lives, and that's just the start of it, (because Scientology offers so much more spiritually.)

One of the things I like best about being a Scientology Volunteer Ministers is having so may tools at my fingertips to be able to help people with whatever their problems are. I always wanted to be able to help. Now I can.