Five South Panola High School students this summer came home from a Fellowship of Christian Athletes leadership camp with a goal: buy Bibles for all the students at their school.

The students, all seniors, brainstormed with the members of South Panola’s FCA adult “huddle” (or chapter) the day after they got home, and after two months and $36,000 in donations, the South Panola FCA huddle purchased Bibles for every high school student in the county.

On Wednesday, the South Panola FCA representatives brought 135 copies of The Competitor’s Bible, imprinted with the FCA logo, and distributed them to students at North Delta during the school’s weekly chapel.

Already the group had given away 1,300 Bibles to students and faculty at South Panola.

The FCA is still working to distribute the Bibles to students from North Panola.

The five students who spearheaded the project had one request of the newspaper: They wanted to remain anonymous.

“We don’t want glory. God did this,” one of the students told me.

It was all about sharing the gospel.

When they came to North Delta this week, I listened from the stands in the gym while they explained their project.

They had been eating lunch together at camp and had begun to talk about doing something special for their senior year.

“We started talking about getting FCA cords to wear at graduation,” one girl said.

But bigger plans developed after the local teens saw FCA members from another town selling t-shirts to make money to buy Bibles for kids at their school.

On the way home from camp the five friends thought first about buying Bibles for all the football players.

Then all the school’s athletes. Then all the seniors.

Then the whole school.

The five teens went to their various churches and told about their plans. The churches jumped in with financial support, some holding fund-raisers, others passing the hat, until more than enough money was available to buy the Bibles the kids wanted: The FCA Competitor’s Devotional Bible for Athletes. The Bibles cost $14 each. By August there was $36,000 in the Bible fund–enough to supply every student in grades 9-12 in the county.

“God greased the pathways,” one South Panola student told the North Delta students. “Everything was given to us.”

“God is working through us,” she continued.  “God loves us; God loves y’all.”