The Kotebe Kale Heywet Church was established in 1992 by five(5) family members who came from Geja Kaleheywot. The church, from its very beginning, was engaged in holistic ministry that included evangelism, church planting, literacy campaign, and providing health care. All these were done despite acute sufferings. During that period, the church was mainly active in the Southwestern areas of Ethiopia. Later, these activities were terminated by the invasion of the Italians. When the America Missionaries were expelled, the first believers carried on the ministries evangelism, church planting, literacy campaign and health care by enduring heavy persecution. As a result, between the years 1940-1966, the church widened its horizon and the number of its members and local churches continued to grow. During the Communist Military (Dergue) regime the church went through another round of persecution. Thousand of churches were closed and hundreds of schools and other development facilities were confiscated by the government. Even during those years, the church continued to grow underground. By God’s grace the difficult years passed, and the country began to exercise religious freedom after the fall of the Dergue Regime in 1991. EKHC used this freedom to the maximum and became one of the largest Evangelical denominations in Ethiopia. The Church currently has over 11,000 local Churches with a membership of more than 10 million. The church started engaging in development work in a well-organized way in 1985 (during the communist regime). This was envisioned by the church leaders to tackle two problems. The first one is to protect itself from the governments hostile attacks by showing that its relief work is helping those who were living in areas that were hit by severe famine and its development work is helping those who are in need. The other reason was to show compassion to people by addressing their physical needs as well as sharing the gospel message with them. Since then, millions have benefited from the development works of EKHC through development programs such as Water and Health, Education, Children support, Integrated Rural Development, organized Self Help Groups etc. The spiritual ministry programs also continued to expand in evangelism, church planning, national and overseas mission, children and youth ministry and training of ministers. The church now one college that offers undergraduate and graduate programs and another graduate school (that EKHC shares ownership with other denominations) that offer graduate programs up to PhD. In addition to that EKHC has 14 theological colleges and 162 Bible schools that train its ministers. Currently, the church has over 2000 cross cultural missionaries within the country and about 30 missionary families serving as international missionaries.