Small moments, big grace
By Ethan Zeledon
June 29, 2026
Ethan with young people from Pittsburgh.
Despite the dreaded 12 hour road trip and the disgustingly humid 85 degrees days in the Georgia forest, the highlight of every Vagabond kid's year - summer camp at Lifeteen. Last year, the Thursday at camp had been exceptionally humid as an hour-long thunderstorm had cancelled our midday activities, mainly the guy's turn at the high ropes course. We waited around until it was time for the daily afternoon mass. The girls with coloring books, constant bathroom shuffles out of the pew, and lots of sweat and collected hot suffering was offered up in the tightly packed chapel. As mass ended and we were heading out to leave, I was following behind Sye who dipped his hand in the holy font and blessed himself with holy water. I had to take a step back to hide the few tears that had formed in my eyes because of that. Ok let's be real, it was more than a few tears.
A few hours later after a very filling family style dinner with all of the kids, we headed into the main space for the nightly talk and the first adoration night. Some kids were singing the worship songs, some were sitting in silence, and of course the girls had their dollar store Christian coloring books out again. As the group was heading out of the building I could see that Sye, my normally funny and obnoxiously rambunctious boy, was quiet and sticking to himself. We gathered on the raised porch overlooking the camp pond and grabbed our nightly treat of ice cream bars. We both sat in silence in chairs overlooking the pond amidst the low hum of grasshoppers and the soft glow of fireflies. I broke the silence after a few minutes and asked him why he had blessed himself with holy water after mass, something I had never seen him do before. He immediately broke down and told me how the recent passing of his grandma had been extra hard on him.
As we talked, he told me that he felt deep in his heart during mass that he knew his grandma was looking down on him from heaven and was proud of him. He felt called to bless himself with the holy water because he recognized that God had blessed him with her life even though she was no longer with him. No wonder God led me to tears after witnessing that! As Sye and I continued to talk, I remembered that as missionaries, we long for those moments for our teens to have an encounter with God but that's not up to us. God has a perfect plan of how and when our teens will encounter Christ in their own lives. The small but powerful act of "blessin up" moved Sye's heart to cry out to God in his hurt and brokenheartedness and God responded by providing comfort and healing to him. Even in the quiet prayers of our hearts, the Lord hears us. Jesus talks about this so beautifully in the Sermon on the Mount when he says "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted". Sye, a kid who normally stays far away from "Jesus activities", made a small move towards his own personal relationship with the Lord and He blessed him with big graces.
