Kale Heywet

Kale Heywet (Word of Life) Church (KHC) is the largest evangelical denomination in Ethiopia. Started in the early 1920s by pioneering Serving In Mission, formerly, Sudan Interior Mission, (SIM) missionaries, Kale Heywet Church thrived in the south-central and south-western corners of the country during the five-year Italian occupation in the 1930s.

Dr. Thomas Alexander Lambie (1885-1954) is one of the prominent of early missionaries towards the establishment of the KHC. His entry and stay for some seven years and re-entry with a group of the first batch of SIM missionaries into the country, his fast friendship with the commoner as well as the high-level officials, including the emperor himself, his brave commitment even to relinquish his birth citizenship to be an Ethiopian in order to get the right to buy and retain land titles and build mission stations with less bureaucracy, is a story in its own right. Articles such as this one and his books testify to his life and ministry. In the first decade of the missionary endeavor the mission itself was known locally as "Lambie's Mahber" - Lambie's association.

The first missionaries had initially planned a trip into the western part of Ethiopia, but after prayer felt they were being led to the South Central area. The early missionary work was concentrated among the Welayta, Kambaata, and Sidama peoples, which are the three most densely populated awrajas (regions) in Ethiopia. This area was, as fertile spiritually as it is geographically. At Dembi Dollo Lambie worked with an Ethiopian evangelist named Gidada Solon.

The few missionaries that entered the country had all to exit the country during the country's invasion by the Italians. They left a handful of believers with the translation of portions of Scriptures and the Gospel of Mark. What the missionaries found when they came back after the five-year occupation of the country was astounding. The handful believers were multiplied by thousands and the fledgling congregation was very strong. The price of planting this church in Ethiopia was at a very great cost, even cost of the lives of three of the earliest missionaries. Nearly 100 missionaries toiled hard for about ten years before they left the country during the invasion. The Italians were not friendly to the Orthodox Church and treated the new Evangelical believers very harshly.

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Wikipedia