Norton, Clarke & Khrystya

Clarke was raised in the church from an early age, and this gave him the opportunity to go on several mission trips before graduating high school. These various trips led to an interest that has continued to grow, and he is continuing to explore. In his last year of studying history at the University of Mississippi, he began searching for a cross-cultural ministry internship and found Leopolis Green, a cross-cultural mentored internship with MTW in Ukraine. He graduated from the University of Mississippi in May 2009 and two weeks later, he arrived in L’viv to begin an 18-month internship with the church-planting team. As an intern, Clarke developed relationships with university students through informal meetings, a men’s discussion group, a large group bible study, film night, hiking, biking and ski trips.

Clarke returned in 2011 with the MTW Edge program. Khrystya is a native Ukrainian from L’viv. She initially met several members of the MTW team at a summer English camp.  After a few years of being around the team, the church and growing in her faith, she joined the church in 2013. In 2015 Clarke and Khrystya were married in L’viv. Khrystya loves being involved in ministry and some of her favorite ministries are the young adult ministry (Leopolis Molodiy) and various children’s ministries of the church.