Electric Co-op Today

The longest bus ride of Gordon Lipscomb’s life began under a cover of darkness in Port-de-Paix, Haiti, a poor community that overlooks the country’s north shore.

Gordon and Angie Lipscomb display their family, which has increased with the adoption of three Haitian orphans. (Photo By: Baldwin EMC)

Just after 1 a.m. on a late January morning, an old school bus packed with children headed south toward earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince, lurching over passageways that were less road than outcropping, and weaving between potholes deep enough to bathe in.

Toward the front of the bus, Lipscomb manned a five-gallon bucket—“potty patrol,” he called it—because even a brief bathroom break stop was too risky. Roadside stragglers might try to latch onto the bus for a free ride, or, even worse, commandeer it, and rob or harm the passengers.

The trip was about 100 miles, but seven hours passed before the bus wobbled into the U.S. embassy compound. “It was the worst experience of my life,” says Lipscomb, a journeyman line technician at Baldwin Electric Membership Corp. in Alabama. “Imagine the worst roller-coaster ride ever on an overcrowded bus for seven hours. The thing is, I’d go back and do it again, without question.”

As he recounts the journey, Lipscomb apologizes for rambling, which is understandable because it’s difficult to put his experiences in Haiti into a coherent whole.

With his wife Angie and a few other adults, Lipscomb labored under deplorable conditions to bring 41 orphans to the United States. Three of them, a toddler and twin infants, now are part of his family, safe in their home in Silverhill in southern Alabama.

“It’s hard for me to recognize the magnitude of all that,” he says. “When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t have much perspective. So many things could have gone wrong. We’re just blessed.”

Tags: Co-op News, Commitment to Community