Beatiful Site and Beautiful Book on the Scientology Volunteer Ministers
I found out about this beautiful book and incredible story when I visited one of my favorite blogs today, the Scientology Volunteers blog on motime.com
Danish photographer and feature writer Thorsten Overgaard traveled 12,000 miles throughout South East Asia after the tsunami, a virtual fly-on-the-wall, documenting the day-to-day lives of the Scientology Tsunami Relief Team Volunteers. "After The Tsunami" presents in detail a behind-the-scenes look at relief work when everyday western people - from the a real estate agent from Germany to a student from Los Angeles - leave behind families, studies, careers and businesses to help strangers in crisis, whom they only know from media reports.
Overgaard gives a very personal message about the project here:
"The wrong thing to do is nothing."
That is a quote from L. Ron Hubbard that resonates as a profound truth for me and how I think and how I work.
My two biggest regrets in this life were (and are) that I didn't drive to Berlin the night the Berlin Wall fell and that I didn't go to New York after September 11. In both cases I had a strong urge to go, but something in me said, "be sensible."
We all carry an urge in us to reach out and do something as well as a voice urging us to be sensible and behave as if everything wrong is somebody else's problem.
In the instance of the tsunami in South East Asia my urge to reach out and help conquered all my fears of strange diseases, pictures in my mind of dead bodies floating in a sea of chaos and a generally low knowledge about Asia and the people living there.
496 Scientologists from all over the world as well had that strong urge to reach out and help their fellow men. Strong enough to have them arrive in Asia. To them the After The Tsunami project is dedicated.
As a volunteer from Los Angeles said "Home in LA they [asians] were just somebody living on the other side of the highway. I never talked to any, nor knew their problems in life. Now I know many people here with whom I have personal relations. People I have helped and who will be my friends for the rest of my life."
If you think about it for a while, isn't it strange that a person from LA travels to Asia to help? When in the middle of it, the answer to the question "What are we doing here?" is quite obvious. When in Asia, being able to help people in a crisis like this - there is no more important thing to do in life.
As Herbert, a real estate agent from Germany said after he had been in Sri Lanka for two months: "I left my real estate business just after New Year and came here. Both my wife and my partner in the real estate business understood and support me. My partner takes care of business while I'm here. He has to. As long as there is somebody here I can help, I'm staying."
Part of the story is that every single person on the Scientology Tsunami Relief Team have not only uprooted their life, income and whatever projects they were in the middle of at home. They have also paid the cost of their flight ticket themselves. And they continue to pay the costs of their daily expenses; approximately $26.00 per day that goes to a bed, some food, transportation and telephone cards necessary for internal communication between teams. >> continued