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The Samburu of Kenya

The Samburu of Kenya, numbering approximately 341,000 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are a Maa-speaking pastoralist people of north-central Kenya closely related to the Maasai, whose ancestors reached the Lake Baringo and Laikipia Plateau area by the 1400s before splitting from the Chamus around 1800 and being pushed north by Maasai raids. They mostly adhere to Animism and Samburu is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: Samburu

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Kenya
People Cluster: Nilotic
Primary Language(s): Samburu (saq)
Primary Religion(s): Animism
Population: 341,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG024980
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Pray for the Samburu of Kenya

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Pray Now!
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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Animism
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

86%
%
Animism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Samburu
Language Family: Nilotic

100%
%
Samburu Speakers

Media Resources in Samburu:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film
JESUSView Film
MagdalenaView Film

3 films

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Samburu:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
Bible Translation and Literacy✓✓
2018 Bible Translation & Literacy✓✓✓

2 entries

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Samburu bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

SPI: Unreached yet Engaged

The Samburu are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Next steps for the Samburu:
Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

Pray specifically for the Samburu of Kenya

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
readIsaiah 40:8

Pray that those who don't know Jesus will be freed from the emptiness of fading hopes and find lasting life and truth in the unchanging Word of God.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!
readPsalm 57:11

Pray that the lost will learn about God's great love and faithfulness so that they might trust in Christ for their salvation.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
readPsalm 119:105

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will meditate daily on the Word of God so that, through it, they might have wisdom for the big and small decisions they face every day.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
read1 Corinthians 15:10–11

Pray that God's people will preach the message of Jesus' death and resurrection and that it will spread among the lost through the selfless witness of believers.

Samburu Across Countries (ROP3 - 108573) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

PhotoPeople Group IDName ▼CountryPopulationStrategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
SamburuPG024980SamburuKenya341,000Engaged yet UnreachedSamburuAnimism

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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