the road ahead

i think there has been a little bit of confusion about our progress here. while it is true that our process is finally moving again after 2.5 months of limbo, that doesn't mean we will come home in just two weeks. the misunderstanding is based on the assumption that when our progress stalled we were on the last step. in fact, it stalled several steps before the last step. in a little over a week, we will finally reach the step that we have been waiting for since the middle of january. but there's still a month's worth of stuff to do after that, assuming everything goes right from this point onward.

put another way, there are roughly seven steps to this process (depending on how you count them). we stalled out at step 3, and as a result not much happened between mid-january and this week. we still have steps 4, 5, 6, and 7 to go. and, for that matter, our limbo period at step 3 came after previous delays at step 1 and a delay that should have happened at step 2, if not for the creativity of our coordinator. which puts the "assuming everything goes right from this point onward" in the prior paragraph in a little bit of context.

i'm not trying to worry anyone. life here isn't bad, but the process is slow and difficult. i just want everyone waiting for us to return to have realistic expectations. things are back on track, but we are not out of the woods yet and have at least one month to go.

(also, i'm sorry to be so vague. i can explain a little more by email if the above doesn't make enough sense)