Ethiopian Dinner...Part 1

As many of you know, this past week has been major preparation for our Ethiopian Adoption Fundraiser taking place tomorrow night. It has been quite the adventure. There is an Ethiopian family that practically lives across the street from us. A couple of months ago our Pastor connected us to them and we have been working together to plan this Ethiopian Dinner. From the second we met them, we were family. In fact, Aster, the wife, said to us, "If you are adopting an Ethiopian child...you are now Ethiopian too! You are family." We immediately felt embraced by their family.

Well, last night started the adventure of getting ready to prepare the meal. We traveled to Sam's Club together, and I had absolutely no idea what we were getting. I just let Aster lead the way. We found that we both had a love for Sam's Club samples, and were excited to see if there were any. We stumbled on the first sample cart and I was so excited I grabbed a toothpick and munched down on a piece of ham. At the same time I offered Aster one. That's when she told me, "Oh no...no, no, Andrea...Ethiopians don't eat pork." As I was swallowing (and I did feel very bad), I managed to mumble, "Not even bacon???" I was quickly told no and made a mental note think about that one for awhile!

We picked up the strangest ingredients, and I had no idea how we were going to make something out of them. 10lb bag of onions, a huge box of onion flakes, lots of garlic, some chicken, some beef, and few other things. I kept telling her, "You know that there are 120 people coming, right?" Little did I know that we would make a TON of food with that.

At the end of the night Aster asked if I would have time to go to Gaithersburg (about 40 min away) to pick up the Injera. Injera is the Ethiopian bread that you eat all the food with...literally...you don't use utensils. There was a small little Ethiopian Cafe there, and of course we were excited to go. So, my mom and I made the trek this morning only to find the store closed. It was supposed to be open at 11am, and it was now 11:40am. I called the store and then saw a little old lady inside. She quickly unlocked the door for us, I told her what we were there for, and she let us in.

Then we sat there for a long time, with the lady smiling at us and making small talk. We weren't really sure why she wasn't giving us the Injera and weren't sure she understood that was what we were there for. So we kind of just hung out...and smiled a lot back! While we were in there, this cute little man came over, introduced himself to us, and proceeded to ask us our names and then wrote our names on a piece of paper in Amharic. It was so cute! About 30 minutes passed and we got the Injera and were on our way. Side note...when I told the lady we were adopting from Ethiopia, she told me she wished she would have known before, because she could have gotten me a baby from her cousin! I didn't want to burst her bubble and tell her it was a little more complicated than that, but I smiled inside anyway!

Well, let's just say Aster, myself, my friends Deanna and Evelyn (who I am forever indebted to for helping today), and Aster's mother (who we called Emma), cut a lot of onions, peeled the skin off of chicken (not going to lie, that was my least favorite part of the day), cut a lot of cabbage and carrots, and in the end, made some AMAZING food! Meanwhile my mom was in my home kitchen cooking spaghetti for tomorrow night, working like crazy. It was so much fun working in the kitchen, learning how to cook Ethiopian food, running back and forth between the house and the church for cooking utensils, asking Aster all kinds of questions, and feeling a little Ethiopian myself for the day.

Here is one of the coolest parts of the day. We knew that the set up for this event was going to be intense. We had to clear out the ministry center at our church, put up tables and metal chairs, move all of the chairs out, put table settings on, etc. It would be overwhelming to do by ourselves. Our friends Steve and Terri came, two new friends from Zumba, Deb and Kari came and brought their kids to help, our friends Kim, Dan, and even two of our teens, Ben and Tasha, all showed up and busted their tails to help. I can't even describe how incredibly full my heart is tonight. I am blessed beyond measure, and tomorrow is going to be a day to remember!