Home Sweet Home

Hello from Waunakee, Wisconsin!!! We are safely home. The day of travel was long but all went well. Our luggage arrived 23 hours after we did, but we enjoyed Josh in our home with family instead of unpacking. Thanks for all of your support and prayers during this journey. Join us on Saturday if you can (details in previous blog entry) and otherwise, we hope that you can meet Joshua soon!

Welcome Home PARTY!!

You are all invited to stop by and meet Josh next Saturday. We are bringing home Colombian coffee, a recipe for Postre de Tres Leches, and flour to make arepas. Join us if you can!

Welcome Home Party
Saturday, October 13
1:00 - 5:00 PM
The Theis home
Waunakee USA

Our visit to Ayudame

Hola from Kristin! We packed up our donations for Ayudame and the staff at the orphanage. We made a stop at Simon Bolivar Hospital where Josh was born. We toured the orphanage and showed Josh off. The staff commented on how healthy Josh looks and they thought he had gained weight and had better color. We certainly think he gets cuter each day! There were many children, especially babies, at Ayudame and very few staff. We brought formula as one of our donations, and the orphanage director said it came just in time because they ran out. Ayudame was very clean and the staff were very nice. But it was still an orphanage in Colombia and we left very sad. With international adoptions slowed right now, Ayudame's main source of income, the future of these children is bleak. We wished that we could do so much more. There are many photos in the photo gallery.

Plane tickets booked!

Hola from a very excited Kristin! This morning, everything went smoothly with Josh's application for a visa to enter the US. Chad and I were both holding our breath the entire 2 hours!!! We will pick up the visa tomorrow afternoon (Friday) at 3:30. As soon as we got back to the hotel, we raced to book tickets. We will be home Saturday night at 8:42 PM. We will be flying into Madison and you are invited to meet us at the airport. I cannot promise that Josh will be awake, but if you can't wait to get a first glimpse, please come and celebrate his arrival to the US with us! Here are our flight details:
Northwest 9002- Bogota to Atlanta- leave 9:30 and arrive 3:32
Northwest 1433- Atlanta to Minneapolis- leave 5:15 and arrive 7:05
Northwest 0398- Minneapolis to Madison- leave 7:35 and arrive 8:42

We only have 30 minutes when we land in Minneapolis, so pray that everything is on time and that we can be fast!

We are visiting and touring Ayudame this afternoon. We will post some pictures later tonight.

See you SOON!!!!

We will be coming home...

Hola! We just got back from the doctor's appointment. He cleared Josh to travel to the United States. Hooray! Josh is now up to 14.25 pounds and he is 25 inches long. He has gained a little weight and the doc said he looks good.

Tomorrow we will apply for Josh's visa in the morning. After that appointment, we will know for SURE when we can come home. If all goes without hitch, we will pick up his visa and travel home on SATURDAY!! We have tickets on hold that leave Saturday at 9am and arrive in Madison around 8pm. We'll update you tomorrow!

Off for pizza at Archie's again. SOOOOO many reasons to celebrate!

Josh has a passport!

Josh has an official passport! Isabel and Johnny picked us up this morning at 9:00 to go get his passport. It wasn't very far away. We took Josh's photo at a photograph place right outside the passport place, and then walked into the passport place. We were once again, amazed by Isabel's networking skills. We walked right past the lines and up to the counter. We paid, filled out some paperwork, and they put my (Chad) fingerprint on some paperwork and then we sat and waited. It wasn't long before Isabel jumped up and went over to an office. We saw her exchange hugs and kisses with someone. Soon after we were on our way with his passport!

And Josh Becomes a Theis!

Josh is officially our son tonight! Wow- what a great and long-awaited day. We walked and did some shopping this morning for our orphanage donations. We both needed to keep busy and distracted. Isabel told us that downtown is not a place for babies, so Josh had his first babysitter today. Our friend Kim watched him and he was his very best for this special day. We were picked up from the hotel at 1:45 and drove about a half hour. We entered an old office building (and an elevator with a maximum of 3 people!) and went up to Court 7. It was a very small office with a counter and at 2:30 exactly, Isabel marched up and received our paperwork. We checked it over carefully for mistakes in spellings, names, and passport numbers. The back page was stamped, we both signed, and that was it! Chad and our driver Jonny went to another building to get photocopies and the lawyer arrived just in time. All of the 8 necessary copies then needed to be signed and so Isabel suggested that we have some coffee while waiting. Unexpectedly, our lawyer showed up with the paperwork at this cafe a half hour later. We drove another half hour to the notary and Josh's birth certificate was changed from his Colombian name to Joshua Danford Theis!! Hooray! This process took about an hour, and during this time Isabel helped us get all the rest of our paperwork ready for tomorrow. She told us not to book plane tickets yet BUT when the lawyer asked, she said that we would fly home THIS WEEKEND as long as Maria (from Ayudame) would have time to meet with us yet this week. Did you read that? THIS WEEKEND!! So, two prayers requests: 1. Maria would agree and have time to meet with us this week (there is one piece of paperwork that she still has) and 2. we could change our plane tickets for this weekend, hopefully not only will a plane have 2 seats for us but also that we could have an easy trip home (10 hours total versus 26 hours total!!).

Tomorrow we are leaving at 9 AM to get Josh a passport. In the afternoon, Josh will have an appointment with a US doctor to clear him for entrance to the US. On Thursday we will apply for his visa and on Friday we will pick it up.

We can't WAIT to see you with our NEW SON!!!

WE HAVE SENTENCIA!!!!!!!!!

Hi Everyone,
At 4:30 today, we got the phone call telling us that we have Sentencia tomorrow at 2:30pm! This is a MAJOR milestone for us, and was completed in RECORD TIME! It's been 3 weeks since we got Josh as of tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll sign the papers, making him Joshua Danford Theis, son of Chad and Kristin Theis! We are then free to leave the country. Of course we need to get a passport, get him checked by a doctor, and get a visa to leave. This process can take anywhere from 3-5 business days. That means that if everything goes at it's absolute fastest pace, we could be home by the weekend(!!!!!) or worst case possibly Tuesday of next week. We cannot express how happy we are! At the current moment Josh is squealing away, I'd like to think it's because he is happy too. We've learned how incredible our agency (Children's Home Society and Family Services) has been. The other couple, Kim and John, also used Children's Home Society. They had Sentencia today, and also got their passport & medical evaluation completed today. We hope that you will see Josh's happy smile in just a matter of DAYS!!!!!!!!!
(Can you tell we're excited?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!)