Southeast Missouri residents fly to Haiti to help

A few Southeast Missouri locals have flown to Haiti to join the military, American Red Cross and other relief efforts in the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation.

Dr. John J. Moll, a general surgeon with the Cape Girardeau Surgical Clinic, departed Friday for Haiti and will stay for eight days to help the Haitian people.

His plan is to take care of acute injuries at the general hospital in Port-au-Prince. If rooms will be available, he wants to do surgery there.

"All that depends on the supplies there," he said. He is bringing two duffel bags in case the hospital has no supplies.

"I hope to do all I can. All the first responders down there say that they need surgeons, surgeons, surgeons," Moll said. "Both hospitals [in Cape Girardeau] were very generous in donating supplies. I got what I can take."

Moll is going with the organization "Hope for Haiti," a not-for-profit organization out of Florida. A nurse will accompany him. He said a lot of people within the organization are Haitian immigrants who want to offer help to their native country.

"Currently seven doctors within this organization are going to Haiti. But there are dozens of organizations wanting to help at the moment," he said. "The communication there is so bad that I haven't contacted any doctor there yet."

Moll went to Haiti in 2004 on a peacekeeping mission while he was in the military. While helping with a relief effort after the country's revolution, he said he started to care for the Haitian people.

While in medical school, Moll did mission trips to Mexico, went to the Dominican Republic and was in Iraq with the Marines for about seven months.

Moll said he thinks it will be hard to leave, because he said it was hard on him the first time he left Haiti in 2004.

"I know that there is an enormous outpouring of offer for help from really all over the country," he said. "My hope is to raise a little awareness. Fortunately everybody knows and everybody wants to help."

Micah Rains, a Cape Girardeau attorney, will depart Tuesday for Haiti with his father, Dr. Paul Rains, a physician practicing in Ellington, Mo.

"We will bring a lot of supplies to a missionary contact we have there," Rains said.

The main objective of their short trip is to provide dry food, water and medicine to David and Alicia Lloyd, directors with Missions in Haiti, Rains said. The Lloyds run a children's home in a town near Port-au-Prince, in addition to other ministries.

"We are going to encourage the missionaries and the Haitian people," Rains said.

Rains said he is scheduled to preach at a service at the children's home Wednesday evening. He said that his father will be prepared to do medical work as needed. They are scheduled to return to the U.S. on Thursday.

Rains said that he and his father were initially to depart Friday for Haiti and stay longer but negotiated a shorter trip when the earthquake cause problems with commercial flights.

"This trip was planned weeks ago, we ordered the tickets way before the earthquake happened," he said.

Rains said that he was somewhat afraid of going at first, but his outlook soon changed.

"I'm hopeful," he said. "I'm confident in the Lord."

Rains said another objective of the trip was simply to raise their own and others' awareness of Haiti.

"Haiti by itself, no earthquake, it is already a tragedy," he said. "It's such a poor and dark country. It is the darkest country on Earth."