Brandon Clements

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I have another story to share from my friend Luis.

Tonight after church a bunch of people went to eat at Courtney and Allen’s house. They offer up their house and cook something on Sunday nights for everyone, and we all pitch in a few bucks to help cover the cost of the food. Luis walked up to the basket and put in a $5 bill, which is more than is asked. Everyone felt bad about him doing that, so a few minutes later I took the bill out of the basket, walked over to him and discretely tried to give it back to him, explaining that it wasn’t necessary for him to do that.

He looked me square in the eye and said, “Am I a part of the family, or not?”

“Of course you are Luis.”

“Then put it back. We do this together.”

I smiled in amazement at him, hung my head and walked back over to the basket to put the money back in. It seems that not a week goes by that I am not humbled and challenged by something he says or does.

On a side note, tonight I found out that the people that Luis works with didn’t even take time to ask him what his name was. They just call him “Paco” because he is Mexican. He was excited to be off of work tomorrow because he said he gets “three days of no Paco. I get to be Luis!” That makes me really sad and kind of angry.

On a happier note, I also found out that Luis is from a city in Mexico named Chihauhau. He told me that he was “a chihauhua from Chihuahua” and did a little dance. It was really funny!