Well Moments - Ashley N. Thomas

What is it? What is it about? What is it about Hope Street?

It is hard to put into words. What it is that makes this place special. We experience it. We want to invite others into it. We find ourselves trying to replicate it in other spaces. It reminds us we are on holy ground. Over a decade ago I began to refl ect. My reflections looked like short phrases on miscellaneous pieces of paper, words I didn't want to forget. In other cases it was many words filling pages of my journal. Moments engrained in my memory, hard fought lessons determining the trajectory of my life. Loss, laughter...life being lived inside of a special place that quite simply had the it factor. Something I chased in other arenas, and here, in Hope Street it chased me.

This book attempts to capture the Love found within a community of broken people. Love that honors boundaries but pursues without limits. A love that reminds until people can't help but to remember. Love that unites, transforms and flips the norm upside down...to what could be or dare we say ought to be. Well Moments: Stories Inside of a Greenhouse for People is a glimpse of what it is that Jesus has for us when we simply receive the cup of living water He has been trying to hand us. It's not complicated, but no less intentional. These are some of the stories, my own wrapped up in the beautiful people who have both lived and spent time at Hope Street, a nonprofit in Milwaukee, WI. My hope is that they usher you into the very presence of the Father who has a greenhouse waiting for you too.