It has been fifty or so long years for many of these churches and holy sites along the banks of the Jordan River on the West Bank. There remains much beauty at these sites and the churches, though long neglected, still retain their grandeur and their art. There is hope here now as, after fifty long years, the place where Christians believe Jesus of Nazareth met with John the Baptist is, finally, being cleared of land mines.
In this place where believers believe Jesus was dipped into the Jordan and baptized and recognized by John the Baptist there has dawned a new enthusiasm that people will make there way back to these holy sites in greater numbers. There are several churches there but no one has come near many of them because there are an estimated 5,000 landmines surrounding the vast area where the shrines sit.
The mines have been there since the end of The Six Day War in 1967. There are warning signs and barbed wire everywhere written in several languages so that no one will doubt where they have wandered into. Jordan and Israel signed a formal peace treaty but no one has ever proposed removing the mines until now.
It has been so long that no one is really sure where the mines really are or if the churches are wired to explode. The HALO Trust, based in England, the world recognized humanitarian organization that removes land mines, has, after a half century, been given permission by the surrounding nations to go in and begin removing all of the mines.
The area has been a highly secure military zone so no one has been killed there by any mines in the past. There was a tourist center cleared of mines back in 2011 but the nearly 300,000 visitors a year have to stay in an extremely restricted area of the potential complex.
HALO wants there to be clear paths from the churches to the river and they look to clear as much space as possible so that this area can, once more, take on the religious significance it has had for centuries and can, once more, be a place of reverence for believers and pilgrims.
PHOTO CREDITS: CNN