This year’s Altar Boy Boot Camp (ABBC) took place 27-29 June. ABBC is a three day event for the altar servers of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet MA. It involves the training of new servers and the honing of skills for accomplished servers. There is also training for MCs who are our older young men who help organize the various liturgies of the parish. This year five new boys completed their training and have begun their year of probation. The first year if service is one of getting used to the various role which the servers can take and indeed just getting comfortable being at the altar. During the Camp the boys get to participate in many exercises aimed at increasing their serving skills. There are also many sporting activities which the boys participate in Combat Soccer being a highlight. As part of ABBC there is usually a field day on which we get to visit a church and do some fun activity. This year we visited Good Shepherd Parish (St. Patrick’s Church) and were given a tour by Fr. Andrew Johnson the Pastor. Afterwards the boys went to Lazer Gate in Fall River and played Laser Tag. Our server program at SFX is extremely strong we have a total of 35 Altar Servers. This year we will loose 5 MCs who will be going to college but we will keep our numbers by adding the five new boys. Our program allows us to promote vocations to these young men in a very unique way. This year Fr. Chris Peschel the Assistant Vocations Director for the Diocese of Fall River gave the boys a presentation about the Vocation of Service at the Altar. Thank you to Jonathan Hamel our Arch-server and Dominic Correia for their help in running this year’s ABBC.
