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Creches of all sizes highlight festival photo by Bob Pennell Cynthia Dean's Nativity collection includes a creche in a glass ball. It is on display with 200 others today. By Cathy Noah of the Mail Tribune CENTRAL POINT -- More than 200 Nativity scenes from around the world -- ranging from a carved walnut to live human beings -- grace a gymnasium this weekend at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are porcelain creches, wood creches, glass creches, even crocheted creches -- all personal collections provided for display by church members and the community. The Remembering Christ Creche Festival and Interfaith Christmas Recital continues from 3 to 8 p.m. today with displays and music at the church, 2305 Taylor Road. Recitals are planned at 5:30 and 7 p.m.; a live Nativity will be performed every hour. Nativity scenes have come from Jerusalem, Switzerland, Guatemala, Mexico, Africa and Bangladesh. They've been carved, blown, molded, painted, sewn and put to music. Some turn by candle power, one activates on wind-up, and some can be hung on the Christmas tree. The biggest ones, of course, run on people food. "It's a glorious experience," says Billie Waters as she directs the last-minute details of the church's fifth Nativity display. Waters and other church members are hoping the festival will bring all Christians together to share a common belief: that the birth of Jesus Christ is what Christmas is all about. Providing nearly half the creches for display is church member Adell Dean, who began collecting Nativity scenes in earnest 12 years ago after she and her daughter, Cynthia, made a creche together from pearl-glazed ceramics. Dean started a Nativity display at her church in Forest Grove, then brought her passion to the Rogue Valley when she moved here in 1993. "I marched into the bishop's office and asked it I could take on the work doing this," she recalled. The bishop agreed, and the Nativity festival continued for three years before Dean took a break in 1996. This year, other church members have stepped in to revive the tradition, and as Dean surveys a gymnasium filled with creches, she gets a bit teary-eyed. "It's nice to see my dream come true," she said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA