Shangri-La Durham-Thompson grew up in Bethel A.M.E. Church in Shelly Bay, Bermuda and she credits her church school with her strong foundation in Christ. At the age of eleven she gave her heart to the Lord and in 1967 she represented her church in Dover. After returning from university in 1976, she became a church school teacher and served in this capacity for eight years before becoming the church school superintendent in 2011. In 2012 she became the Bermuda Conference Church School Superintendent. Shangri-La is also a church steward, a position she has held since the 1970’s. This writer and director of numerous plays (one produced and performed at the A.M.E. Headquarters on Market Street, Philadelphia), is the author of Battle for Freedom, a collection of drama, and poetry. One of her of her plays in this collection highlights the history of the A.M.E. Church in Bermuda. Her poem, The Dawn of a New Day, was written at the request of the then premier of Bermuda. Shangri-La is featured in Bermuda’s first anthology of poetry and various other works. As an educator of over 38 years, she has taught in the public school system, the Bermuda College and was an adjunct professor for Mount Saint Vincent University. For eight years she held the position of Arts Officer at the Bermuda Department of Education where she initiated Spring into the Arts, an annual five day arts festival which highlighted Bermuda’s talented youth. Since 2003, this wife, mother and nurturer of God’s people, especially children, serves as a school principal who lives by 2 Timothy 3:16-17.