The local Pentecostal movement originated in the 1960s in Ethiopia, and experienced significant growth in Eritrea in the 1970s and 1980s, despite the fact that the Derg, the ruling party in Ethiopia and Eritrea at that time, persecuted Evangelical and Pentecostal movements. At the end of the 1970s, some Ethiopian pastors moved to Asmara in order to carry out evangelization activities (Kileyesus 2006, 77), based in the Finnish Pentecostal Mission that had been working in Asmara since 1971 (Anderson 2013, 170). The Finnish Pentecostal Mission in Asmara ran a religious center (1971…