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Scientology Today: Two Scientology Volunteer Ministers on Their Return from Peru Following the Pisco Earthquake

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On August 15th, 2007 at 6:40 PM local time a magnitude-8 earthquake rocked the coastal region of central Peru, causing more than 500 deaths and leaving over 1,800 injured. The earthquake destroyed nearly 60,000 buildings and... See more » On August 15th, 2007 at 6:40 PM local time a magnitude-8 earthquake rocked the coastal region of central Peru, causing more than 500 deaths and leaving over 1,800 injured. The earthquake destroyed nearly 60,000 buildings and damaged another 20,000. Although the town of Pisco was hardest hit, the earthquake shook the city of Lima more than 150 miles away and was felt as far off as Quito, Ecuador, La Paz, Bolivia and Manaus, Brazil. On hearing of the earthquake, two Scientology Volunteer Ministers from Los Angeles California, Eric and Gloria Anderson, decided to join the Scientology disaster relief team that was forming up in Peru. Here is their story in their own words. Scientology Today: Why did you decide to join the Scientology Disaster Relief Team in Peru? Gloria: I am from Peru. I have three grown daughters there. These people are my brothers. They were suffering and we just had to go. We made the decision immediately and within four days we were there. Eric: One of Gloria's daughters contacted us 20 minutes after the earthquake. That's how we learned about it—chatting with her online. When an aftershock hit she wrote, "Mom, I have to go, the ground is moving!" Scientology Today: Tell me how it felt to be part of the Scientology Disaster Relief Team in Peru. Eric: It was a really different feeling. There were so many people who needed help and so much that needed to be done that I found myself energized despite the harsh conditions. Gloria: For me it was an incredible experience. I felt myself expanding and taking on so much more responsibility. I accomplished things I never had thought I would be able to do before. Scientology Today: What was Pisco like, those first few days? Eric: Being in Pisco and seeing the amount of destruction was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. Most of the buildings in Pisco are made of adobe—unburned, sun-dried, mud bricks. The earthquake destroyed most of the homes in Pisco and everywhere you looked there was thick dust in the streets—dust that was all that remained of thousands of homes that disintegrated. I was struck by the absence of people in the town. Thousands of residents were in tents that they pitched along roadsides. Although the people of the town gradually started returning home to salvage their property, when we arrived it was only the military and humanitarian relief organizations that were there, carrying out the salvage and relief operation. Soldiers and relief workers had been up around the clock for days and were in very rough shape. Scientology Today: How did the people of the town adjust to having so much devastation? Gloria: After what they had just experienced most of the people in Pisco were terrified of the possibility of another building collapsing on them. Even though there was a very large shelter set up for them, with plenty of room inside, many were too terrified to stay inside an enclosed space and they camped outside the shelters instead. Scientology Today: You helped organize the shelters, didn't you? How did you know what to do there? Gloria: I had studied the basics of organization as part of my Volunteer Ministers training and I also had some training in disaster relief as part of the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) in Los Angeles. So I had an idea of what it would take to organize and run the shelters. In the first shelter I went to, the military and police were afraid of riots because of food and water shortages. I put what I had learned right to work. We assigned people jobs and organized up teams of volunteers from the people in the shelter, and before long the whole place was calm, the people were feeling more relaxed and hopeful and the danger of any rioting was a thing of the past. People just started peacefully helping one another. Scientology Today: One thing Volunteer Ministers have, to help people in times like this, is assist technology. Can you describe what that is, and what it was like having and using this skill in Pisco? Eric: That's true. Assists are procedures developed by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Scientology See less »

Tags:

dianetics, hopscotch, hubbard, miscavige, scientology

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