Beautifying the Holy Land

“Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”

As he sat down with The Fellowship recently, Jordan Marcellino quoted Isaiah 58:12 when telling how God called his family back to Israel—to live, to work, and to restore the beautiful Holy Land he calls home.

And today, the holy work of rebuilding, repairing, restoring, and raising up the Holy Land is being done through the Beautiful Land Initiative (BLI), founded by Jordan and his wife Hillary in 2015. With a wide array of projects—from voluntourism cleanups to beachside bins, from education to archaeology of the land of the Bible—BLI connects those who stand with Israel to the Holy Land that they love, making Israel even more beautiful in the process.

Jordan chatted with The Fellowship at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) convention in Nashville, TN, sharing of Israel’s beauty, of God’s call to him, and how the Beautiful Land Initiative is inspiring and empowering all of God’s people to appreciate and take ownership of His Holy Land.

For more information on today’s episode visit mybiblicalroots.org.

Episode Notes:

In 2015, Jordan Marcellino felt God calling him and his young family back to the land where he’d lived as a boy—Israel. Once in Tiberias (one of Israel’s four Holy Cities), Jordan and his wife Hillary felt God’s call to address one of the country’s overlooked problems—litter.

Founding the Beautiful Land Initiative (BLI), the organization began cleaning up the area around the Sea of Galilee, beautifying what already is a truly beautiful and truly biblical place. An encounter—which Jordan shares in this conversation—with an emotional Israeli who was touched of this love of the Holy Land, showed the Marcellinos the power of their work.

Since then, BLI has brought together thousands of tourists, schoolkids, volunteers, Israelis, Christians, and Jews to not only cleanup Israel, but to better appreciate and take ownership of the country’s natural resources and natural beauty. By leading cleanup crews, organizing educational programs, and even volunteering at archaeological sites in the Galilee, BLI has built bridges between Israel and those who love her. And it has taken seriously the words of the prophet Isaiah to “raise up the age-old foundations” (58:12).