HOMESTUDY IS HERE!!! I600A on its way!

Finally!!! We received our revised homestudy, YAY!!! We had a complete homestudy since February 2008, but when we changed countries from Liberia to Ghana we had to have our homestudy completely updated. Then we added Comfort to our group, so it was a good thing we were in the process of getting our homestudy updated because our social worker was able to change the number of children from 2 to 3 at the same time.
Also, interestingly, we had been expecting our homestudy in the mail for days but it had still not arrived. On Wednesday I was talking on the phone to my friend Laurel when our homestudy arrived. I mentioned that I was going to mail our I600A form right away and she told me not to mail it because it would take a few months and if we went to the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) in person it would only take 2 weeks. If we would have received our homestudy the day before, I would have already mailed it! We then would have been stuck for a couple months! Thank you Laurel!!!
So, I went online to find out how to visit the USCIS and it looked to me like you have to have an appointment, but I called Laurel back and she told me that they went without an appointment a year ago, (she even had an email from them saying that you don't really have to have an appointment) so we decided to take a road trip the next day (3 hours each way). Both Mark and Kelcey were off work that day (we all needed to be fingerprinted) so it worked out perfect! Of course being the research person that I am, I continued to try to figure out if we really needed an appointment so I emailed the USICS and I called and left a message for our social worker. Neither of them got back to me so away we went.
When we arrived at the USCIS we were met at the door by a very 'secure' security guard who obviously liked his job of guarding the entrance. Of course you can guess what he said. Yeah, "you need an appointment". I explained that we just drove 3 hours and couldn't they make an exception and he said "wait here" and disappeared into his totally secure building. We began to pray, pray, pray that God would work this out and the security guard came back to the door and told us to come in. YAY!!! So all 6 of us filed through the door, filled up his tub with our cellphones, wallets and all the contents of our pockets and then passed through the metal detector. We were told to go to the counter and the nice lady behind the counter would help us. When we got to the counter the lady behind the counter asked us if we had an appointment. GRRR. No, I explained, we do not have an appointment but the nice security guard told us that you would help us, can you? As she typed away at her computer trying to figure out how to get our names in without an appointment (and mumbling the whole time, "you really need an appointment, this is not going to work, all my spots are booked, nope can't do it") we prayed, prayed, prayed! All of a sudden she looked surprised and said "Oh, how did that happen? Hmmm, why did it let me over book?" BECAUSE GOD WANTS THIS ADOPTION TO GO THROUGH AND GO THROUGH QUICKLY!!! That's why!
So, we were in and out in 20 minutes, our I600A is all filed, fingerprints are done and it should be back in a couple weeks instead of a couple months.
By the way, right when we left the USCIS office our social worker called us on our cell phone to tell us not to drive there without an appointment because they have recently changed the policy and we won't get in without an appointment.
Oh, and when we got home we had received an email from USCIS saying that we needed to have an appointment and would not be seen without one.
I can't say if we were walking by faith or ignorance, but I can say that God totally took care of everything. I know I've said it before, but God is amazing!
One more step closer to getting our kids!!
Lanae