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!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Donut Story

Image
When I was about five years into being a Youth Pastor, I met a group of kids that changed my life.  Many of you reading this, who know me personally, have probably heard me talk about them numerous times.  Nate and I happened to live in the parsonage next door to the church I was serving at at the time, and would routinely come home to a group of boys that I would have described then as "rough around the edges."   They dressed mostly in black, had long hair, and sometimes even had black painted fingernails.  They loved to smoke, and they loved to skateboard.  After a few days of watching them through our window, Nate and I went outside and brought them some sodas.  We introduced ourselves, told them I was the Youth Pastor at the church, and invited them to come to youth group.  While they politely declined our invitation, we continued to invite them over and over again, attempted to skate with them, and fill them with snacks.  Until one day, ...
Read more

A Mother's Heart...

Image
It was the night before we were ready to leave for Ethiopia that it dawned on me. We hadn’t given the necklace to Biruk yet. When we had exchanged necklaces with his birth mom ten years prior at the orphanage, we had no idea when we would give it to him. We just knew that we wanted him to be old enough to appreciate it, as it would be the only thing he would have from her. We had no idea if we would ever see her again.  There have been several moments in our journey where I’ve had to pinch myself, because it has felt like I was dreaming. That night as we put our final things in our suitcases, took a deep breath, and came to the realization that we were not only taking our kids to Ethiopia, but that Biruk would in fact meet his birth mom…well, you had to pinch me, because it felt like I was dreaming. It also felt like the perfect moment to share this gift that we had been holding onto for 10 years. So we pulled out the necklace and gave it to Biruk. While words can be few and...
Read more

Stories Matter

Image
Yesterday, my family and I found ourselves at a local elementary school’s culture club, presenting about our trip to Ethiopia. Even as I write those words, it kind of blows my mind how God has continued to use our story in unexpected places. When the kids were old enough to understand, we began to talk about taking them back to their birth country when they turned 10. We figured at 10, they would be old enough to be pretty good travelers, but still approach the adventure with a childlike wonder. What we didn’t plan on, was that the year Biruk turned 10 would come on the heels of me taking a brand new job, our family moving to a new state, and buying our very first house, in an economy that felt as though it was tanking!  I remember talking to my counselor one day and sharing with him that while we had always promised this trip to our kids, it just didn’t seem to make financial sense. After all, last time I checked, Southwest Airlines does not travel to Africa. He said someth...
Read more