A parent of a Faith Christian School student shares these photos and says:

The XC Team had a meet today at Christian Heritage.

The girl in purple in the picture, number 349, is a high school runner.   She had fallen behind the rest of the US runners. The race was a 5K. She probably took about 45-50 minutes to complete this race.*

Some of our middle schoolers who were watching the race as she came into the last mile decided to run across the field and join her. They ran with her and encouraged her. They kept pace with her. As she got closer to the end-chute, our middle school runners (their race was over), ran with this girl until she reached the chute into the finish line. In fact, the girl’s pace actually picked up as she got closer to the finish. In this picture, you can see our kids calling encouragement to her. Some other runners saw what was happening and joined in. The little girl’s team is in the background watching….in awe. They had been seated on the grass talking as she neared the finish line and at that point they noticed that their team mate had some company. They got up as a group and walked to meet them.

As you can imagine, when she finished, and by now, people noticed what was taking place, everybody cheered. Several of us more sensitive parents, were holding back tears. The little girl checked her watch as she finished, it was her personal best time, and thanked the FCS kids graciously. Her team mates thanked them too and high-fived them. It was probably one of the most moving shows of sportsmanship that I’ve ever seen.

Submitted by an FCS parent

Thanks you!

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*Note: This post has been edited.