Scientology Volunteer Minister Teams Up With Archangel Airborne To Provide Emergency Medical Training In Haiti

Scientology Volunteer Minister Ayal Lindeman is carrying out his 6th humanitarian mission to Haiti since the January 2010 earthquake. Since arriving May 14, he has trained more than 1,100 community health personnel, families and first-responders in simple skills that save lives.

Lindeman, a 20-year veteran emergency medical technician and licensed practical nurse, trained some 400
people the first week there, and teamed up with Archangel Airborne May 22 for a series of training sessions and clinics for persons with little or no medical training. These sessions were organized by Archangel Founder and President Stuart Hirsch.

Each of the workshops cover basic medical and first-aid skills for coping with disasters and epidemics. Lindeman incorporates techniques from The Scientology Handbook for the relief of trauma and confusion and provides practical know-how learned over the past decade through service in ten major disasters including the January 2010 Haiti earthquake.

As cholera has killed more than 7,000 Haitians and sickened more than 531,000 since the epidemic began in October 2010, Lindeman’s workshops feature training on how to cope with and prevent the spread of cholera: what the disease is, a very inexpensive and simple way to make safe drinking water, and an oral rehydration formula to assist those who do contract the illness to survive.

Workshops also include how to deal with life-threatening injuries and conditions in the harshest of circumstances; basic first-aid including bleeding control, injury stabilization and spinal protection despite lack of supplies; and transporting of patients using material easily found even in a disaster zone.

Archangel Airborne is a nonprofit organization of aviators, clinicians and multidisciplinary specialists whose mission is to provide medical, logistical and consultative support to areas in need of restabilization. The team utilizes aircraft to transport clinicians, advisors, supplies and equipment to underserved areas.


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SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEER MINISTERS HONORED IN THE PLACE THAT TIME FORGOT

The Savulei Paramount Council of Chiefs of the Solomon Islands endorsed the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program in March 2012 and welcomed the volunteers to the island in a traditional ceremony that dates back from the dawn of time.

Lambi is home to Paramount Chief Savulei whose authority extends over the 56 chiefs of the Savulei Council of Chiefs. So impressed was he by the results he saw in his village, he and his council officially endorsed the program and invited the Volunteer Ministers to return for a traditional welcoming ceremony.

The endorsement expresses the Savulei Council of Chiefs’ thanks to L. Ron Hubbard for developing the program:

“As Paramount Chief of Savulei and the Chairman of the Savulei Council of Chiefs I write on behalf of 56 Chiefs and the people of Savulei.

“We have come to know Mr. Hubbard through his Scientology teachings. We see him as a man of much wisdom, one who truly cares about others and we have great respect for him.

“The Savulei Council of Chiefs say thank you so much Mr. Hubbard. We look at you as our Big Chief guiding us to a better way of living.”

For more than 30,000 years, Solomon Islanders have lived much as they do today in “the place that time forgot” as the island nation is known. In villages like Lambi throughout Guadalcanal, traditional ways of living trace back thousands of years, untouched by the outside world. Villagers live in thatch-covered huts: no phones, no Internet—no electricity.

But its isolation from the rest of the modern world does not spare Lambi from the problems inherent in life, and the technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard for the Volunteer Minister program applies as much in an isolated village as it does in London, Moscow or New York.

For six weeks, beginning in November 2011, the volunteers of the Goodwill Tour lived in the village and organized workshops, training more than 100 villagers in important life skills: the underlying cause of conflicts, the barriers to study, communication, and the full array of subjects contained in the Scientology Handbook.

From the ranks of those they trained, a team of indigenous Volunteer Ministers formed up that will continue the work after the South Pacific Goodwill Tour moves on.

In the official welcoming ceremony in March 2012, the leader of the Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tour and the team of local Volunteer Ministers paddled across the bay to enter Lambi. As they arrived on the shore, the chief’s warriors attacked to protect the village; the chief steps in, telling his warriors to stand down—that these are friends—and invited them to enter the village where they exchanged food and gifts.

In his speech to those assembled, the Paramount Chief thanked the Volunteer Ministers for providing the technology to bring the peace and spiritual freedom his people have been seeking.

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In creating the program in 1976, L. Ron Hubbard described the qualities of the Volunteer Minister: “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.”

Scientology Volunteer Ministers have trained and partnered with more than 1,100 organizations, including the Red Cross, FEMA, National Guard, Salvation Army, Mexico’s International Rescue Brigade, Boy Scouts, and hundreds of local, regional and national groups and organizations, giving freely of their skills, their care and compassion. They have provided physical and spiritual relief at more than 200 disaster sites.

Today hundreds of thousands of individuals are trained in the skills of a Volunteer Minister across 185 nations. For more information on Scientology Volunteer Ministers, visitwww.volunteerministers.org.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers in action at the Scientology VM Blog

In Grateful Acknowledgement of L. Ron Hubbard

One of the greatest gifts I have received from L. Ron Hubbard is the ability to help.

Most everyone, at one point in his or her live, has felt helpless when help was needed--when a loved one died, when a disaster struck destroying a lifetime's possessions, when a friend felt betrayed. To be able to do more than sympathize, to be effective, what would we have given for that ability.

As a Scientology Volunteer Minister I know I have the tools to help no matter the circumstances. And there is not greater gift than that.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers in action at the Scientology VM Blog

Scientology Disaster Response Team in Ishinomaki, Japan

Scientology Disaster Response Team in Ishinomaki, Japan

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.

(Left) A Scientology Volunteer Ministers provides a Scientology assist to a woman at a home for elderly women in Ishinomaki, Japan. Assists are techniques developed by L. Ron Hubbard that addressing the spiritual and emotional factors in stress and trauma. Courses in how to deliver Scientology Assists are available through the Volunteer Ministers website at volunteerministers.org


Scientology Volunteer Ministers in action at the Scientology VM Blog

Scientology Disaster Response in Thailand

Scientology Volunteer Ministers are providing relief in Bangkok, Thailand, where flooding has affected some 3 million people.

Volunteer Ministers from the Church of Scientology Mission of Bangkok are working with other relief organizations to cope with the needs of those at a temporary shelter at Chon Buri College where more than 4,000 evacuees were moved to two weeks ago where they cooked and distributed food and provided Scientology Assists.

Teams of Volunteer Ministers also packed some 5,000 food boxes and delivered them by boat to those stranded by the flood waters.

To join the response team, fill out the disaster relief form on the Volunteer Minister website.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers in action at the Scientology VM Blog

Volunteer Ministers Praised at Scientology Church Grand Opening in Twin Cities

Scientologists, guests, state and city officials assembled in downtown St. Paul, Saturday October 22, for the dedication of the new Church of Scientology Twin Cities.

Scientologists, guests, state and city officials assembled in downtown St. Paul, Saturday October 22, for the dedication of the new Church of Scientology Twin Cities. (Event Images:http://www.ScientologyNews.org ). The Church stands at 505 Wabasha Street and was formerly home to the Science Museum of Minnesota. The acquisition of the 82,000-square-foot facility in the heart of St. Paul was necessitated by the meteoric growth of the resident Scientology community. The Church of Scientology Twin Cities is now the largest Scientology facility in the American Midwest and will serve parishioners from Wisconsin to the Dakotas.

Located just blocks from the State Capitol and St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Church is additionally adjacent to the famed Fitzgerald Theater and so forms an “historic square” of buildings in downtown St. Paul. The premises were carefully renovated to preserve its most memorable features, including the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Wabasha Street and the three-story atrium. Also faithfully preserved was the original 300-seat IMAX Theater, now to serve as the Scientology Chapel and community meeting ground for citizens of all denominations. >>

Scientology Volunteer Ministers in action at the Scientology VM Blog

Peter Dunn: All in the Name of Help

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!

Scientology Volunteer Ministers in action at the Scientology VM Blog