Palmer boy researches, unites local churches

PALMER — Anthony Irsik is not one to sit and wait for life to happen to him — or anyone else.

Not only does the ambitious 11-year-old aim to have his bachelor’s degree by the time he’s 18 and get a book published on deep-sea creatures within the next year.

This weekend he hopes to accomplish what no other youngster in the Valley has done before.

The homeschooled member of Palmer Church of God has invited members of 37 Palmer churches, more than 30 local ministries and several public servants to gather for the first “Palmer Singspiration” at Raven Hall on the Alaska State Fairgrounds Saturday night.

This one-of-a-kind Colony Days event is meant to unite in song and inspiration a variety of faiths and services for the good of the community. It is the finale of a yearlong school research project Irsik completed.

“He came to me two years ago and asked what he could do for his community,” his mother and teacher, Donna Irsik, said Wednesday at their home near the Palmer Carrs store. “I told him I had no idea. I didn’t have any experience with community projects. I didn’t know where to start. But when young people hear about all the turmoil going on in the world, they don’t feel safe. So we prayed about it.”

Irsik, an outgoing boy who isn’t shy about his beliefs, said conservative radio personality Glen Beck was the one who initially inspired him to take action to help churches become a special shield in their communities to protect residents from negative outside influences.

“My mom prayed about it and God told her that he wanted us to get interviews of all these churches and unite them all together so they’d be united, purposeful and strong,” he said. “And when they’re united, purposeful and strong, it would annihilate the majority of the needs. Of course, in the Bible it says you always have the poor and everything. But there would be a lot less in the Mat-Su Valley or the greater Palmer area if everyone worked together to help them.”

Anthony and his mother were surprised to find out there were more than 37 churches in Palmer alone and more than twice as many local ministries serving a variety of local needs.

“That’s not even the whole Valley!” Donna said as she flipped her long, blonde hair behind her petite shoulders. “Wasilla’s even bigger. It’s amazing!”

At first, Anthony and his mom focused on interviewing leaders of each Palmer church — most of whom were members of the larger Valley Pastors Prayer Network or the Valley Christian Conference — to learn about their basic doctrines, outreach ministries, websites and contacts before inviting each to the Singspiration event.

That meant one-on-one appointments with 32 clergy over several weeks.

“He’d sit there with a clipboard and paper and ask people questions as he took notes,” the mother of four said. “Sometimes, he’d also draw pictures to illustrate what they were saying. Sometimes he had three interviews in one day and always at least one. It was a lot of work.”

After a large, white binder weighing 10 pounds was filled with Anthony’s notes and surveys, his mom told him they might as well fill another binder with all the different Palmer-area ministries. That binder holds the results of interviews with people at 41 ministries and social services.

Two smaller binders contain interviews with eight public servants and four community leaders, such as Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson, Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss, retired pastor and civil rights activist Howard Bess and Palmer Chamber Director Jillyan Hendrickson.

Community leaders were asked how they got into politics, their goals while in office and whether they believe the federal government is “of the states, by the states and for the states and that state government is of the people, by the people and for the people.”

Neither of them realized the amount of work involved in this project.

“The work doubled,” she said as Anthony let out a big sigh.

In the end, however, Anthony had compiled an invaluable collection of the area’s spiritual and/or service-oriented resources that will be distributed in summary form during Saturday’s event.

Some of the social services and ministries included on the list are lesser-known entities such as Alaska Dream Center, a free, faith-based drug rehabilitation facility; Blood and Fire Ministries of Alaska; Christian Motorcycle Association; Elizabeth Ministry, which provides woman-to-woman services for those who’ve lost a child; Craftsmen for Christ; and Let’s Talk Alaska, an abstinence-based campaign.

One bit of research particularly struck a nerve with Anthony. Stephanie Campbell, of Project Homeless Connect, asked him to do a report on local homeless shelters and submit his findings and opinions to her.

“I was pretty angry that there was that much homelessness here,” he said. “I can’t believe there are only three shelters in the Mat-Su Valley and Mat-Su is the size of Virginia. What is wrong with this world? I would like to see what the churches are doing. If just 60 percent of the evangelical churches did something, it would definitely help the homeless, I’ll tell you that!”

The young artist who hopes to someday be either a marine biologist or a design engineer for Lego or Nerf toy companies is passionate about one other thing: abortion. And he’s not shy about it.

In the conclusion of the speech he will deliver during the Singspiration event, Irsik calls on attendees and local churches to take a stand against abortion.

“I would like to leave a thought with you from Dr. Bernard Nathanson,” he said, reciting his speech. “Dr. Nathanson was one of the founders of the abortion movement. He helped provide 75,000 abortions, one of them being his very own child. He later became a pro-life movement leader. Nathanson explained to the public how he got abortion legislation passed. ‘We knew that the biggest obstacle in our way was not going to be the government or the media or academia. We knew we had those and could easily get those on our side. The biggest obstacle was going to be the church … (Abortionists) never would have gotten away with what (they) did had (churches) been united, purposeful and strong.’”

Irsik said he feels he’s grown quite a bit as a Christian in the past year and is excited to share what he learned during his research project.

“This past year I have learned God is a personal God,” he said at the end of his speech. “(I’ve learned) how to worship and praise God, how to see God’s face, how to be loving to others, to be a servant, to be forgiving and be prepared and to learn from our past and be united, purposeful and strong.”

The Palmer Singspiration event is open to everyone and begins at 6 p.m., Saturday at Raven Hall. It will include gospel music from three different groups and words projected on a screen for the audience to sing along. Information on local services will be provided at tables within the hall.

For more information, visit matsusing.com or contact Donna Irsik at 746-0595 or donnairsik@hotmail.com.

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.mckee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.