When 9/11 hit, a lot of my friends and I were really brought up short. It was such a shock that something like this could happen in America. I thought, at first, this was going to change America forever. It really didn't impact things as much as I thought it would. People went back to being complacent, and life went on (even though we've actually been at war ever since!).

But for Scientologists it actually made a huge impact and change.

For one thing, and probably the main thing, the leader of our religion, David Miscavige, issued a letter to all Scientologists that he called "the Wake-Up Call." In it he pointed out that 9/11 brought home that we have to do something urgently and at once to reverse the downward spiral in our country and the world. He urged every Scientologist to do more.

Since then, there has been a huge increase in the amount Scientologists have been volunteering. And one key way has been in field of disaster relief, with Scientology Volunteer Ministers helping at virtually every major disaster since.

And it is the kind of help no one else can give, really. Because of the technology L. Ron Hubbard developed to help a person overcome trauma, there are thousands, tens or thousands, maybe even millions of people today who have come through disasters without the long term debilitating effects this kind of incident usually causes in one's life.

The a couple of years ago David Miscavige announced a real coup. Training in this kind of disaster relief work is now available online on the Scientology Volunteer Ministers web site. This means, if you can access the Internet, you can learn to help people overcome trauma. That sure makes it possible to outreach far, far more. Pretty incredible.

News about the Scientology Volunteer Minister at Blog.VolunteerMinisters.Org!