Global Prayer for the Neglected: East Pokot

December 28, 2023

All Nations International held its monthly prayer for the unreached and the neglected on December 28, 2023 (the last Thursday of the month.) This Global Prayer for the Neglected featured the East Pokot of northwestern Kenya. To learn more or to join our next global prayer, visit: https://allnations.international/neglectedpeople.

The East Pokot are pastoral nomads who move with their livestock throughout Baringo County of Northwestern Kenya. They are animistic with many religious practices and rituals. Though many mission efforts have engaged the East Pokot, they are still considered unreached with the Gospel. The majority are uneducated, and their women, especially, suffer from forced marriages, polygamy and sexual abuse. Other issues keeping them neglected and hard to reach include harsh living conditions, no running water or electricity, violent cattle raiding and malnutrition from food scarcity and consistent droughts.

All Nations’ Kenyan fieldworker Eric* has been focusing on church and pioneer business planting among the unreached East Pokots since 2016. Eric and his family are owners of a successful barber shop in Marigat where they live. In addition to sustaining their family and allowing easy access into the lives of locals, their business pays for their travel expenses to the East Pokot with whom they seek to share the Gospel and make disciples. Eric’s vision is to train the East Pokots to do the same in their communities. Recently, a group of young pastoralists came to Christ and are now traveling on motorcycles urging their friends to stop rustling and stealing livestock. The group has shifted to keeping bees and selling honey, which has resulted in less fighting.