Hi! My name’s Anna “Maggie” Stevens Shourds and I’m a Junior at Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham, Maine.

I’m the only daughter of Gail and Glenn Stevens Shourds, but I do have three half-brothers, the youngest being 20 years older than me.

My parents and I recently moved our entire farm from southern Indiana to where we live now in Bowdoinham, Maine. We make both goat and cow cheeses, yogurt, and sell raw milk. We have a variety of animals and a small garden that will hopefully grow in the future.

Church at home and beyond
I’ve attended several different churches in my lifetime, most of them being United Methodist, and we were also home-churched for a time. While this has been difficult in a few ways, I think it also helped shape me into not being dependent on the Church for ‘giving me Jesus’. I had to almost find him myself and I try to find ways where I can follow his teachings in my everyday life.

I remember a few different camps that I went to, one being Camp Loucon in Kentucky. That was probably one of my favorites, although they were all fun in different ways.

One of the best memories I have is from the very first year I went, I was about 8 years old at the time. The first night we had a tug of war contest between the campers and the councilors. A bunch of us fell down as the councilors dragged the rope toward them and it ran right across the back of my knee, giving me a pretty bad rope burn.

It was hard for me to walk most of the rest of camp, but the girls that were in my room were so kind and helped me out the rest of the time we were there. If we were playing a game, they had me on one of the lower beds with ice under my knee and they would all sit on the floor so I could play with them. They would stay behind to help me walk wherever we were going.

I still remember how kind they were to help me to this day. I think that’s something that’s made a big impression on me, even if it’s not something I’m always consciously aware of, and it helps me to be kind to others in need. 

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