Bella Vista church displays unique collections

Forest Hills Church in Bella Vista offers the community a special gift. "One Bethlehem Night," a free event, is highlighted by the display of about 300 Nativity scenes next weekend.

The display comes from the collections of two member families, Patricia and Mark Kirby and Monica and Larry Milam, both of whom have been collecting for years.

The manger scenes or creches -- as Nativity scenes also are called -- come from all over the world, and each brings a likeness of its place of origin. For example, a scene from the Congo includes an elephant and zebra rather than sheep and donkeys. A moose and a Husky dog stand beside an Eskimo and an igloo in a set from Alaska.

The Kirbys got their start when Patricia's mother gave them a standard ceramic set for their first wedding anniversary in the early 1970s, and they collected pieces throughout Mark's career as a pastor. Today, they scour the internet for unusual pieces offered by fair-trade organizations.

"A lot of the countries aren't Christian," Patricia Kirby said. A creche from Vietnam was made available by missionaries.

Monica Milam also got her start in the 1970s and has collected her Nativities from places she has traveled. She worked in education for the American Geodetic Survey and lived and traveled across Central America.

"I don't know how I started collecting Nativity scenes," she said. "But it's something I like. I'm a Christmas freak and love everything about it."

Milam does remember her first scene -- from Costa Rica. "One little man took me out to his house to order mine," she related. "I drove a Buick Skylark, and the roads were unreal. I kept thinking, 'What happens when I break down?' But I didn't, and I got my Nativity scene.

"I know where every one of mine came from," she continued. "I remember every trip."

And those given to her by friends -- even if they are common -- are cherished pieces of her collection, she added.

Milam said she especially enjoys the rare and hard to find sets fashioned from fabric by weavers in Guatemala. "I'm a weaver, too," she said.

The collectors pointed out other special pieces in their collections.

Patricia showed a tiny scene, with pieces no bigger than glass beads. It was made by a glass worker in Bella Vista who made the figures with glass leftover from her art. She showed another made of stained glass from the church in which she grew up.

"We collect for the medium," Patricia said. Her collection includes socks, sweatshirts, pins and more with representations of the Nativity.

Milam showed a set made of corn-husk dolls from the Bella Vista Arts & Crafts Festival. "It was too expensive, so I bought it piece by piece," she said. "But when I went back to get the three wise men, they only had two left. But the Bible never said there were three wise men ..."

"And according to the Bible, the wise men didn't come that night," Patricia Kirby said. "They came at Epiphany."

Patricia noted that many scenes show the baby lying in the manger with his arms outstretched. "I took it to mean that he's here for us all. But a doctor-friend of mine said this is how babies come out of the womb."

"And some have Joseph holding the baby," Mark added.

Mark Kirby's favorite piece is "the one I just bought," he said. "Especially if it was elusive."

He looked for two years for an Eskimo scene, then found two in about two weeks. Currently, he searches for a chess set, with one set of Nativity figurines in white and the other set -- with exactly the same figures -- in a color.

"Pat says I probably enjoy the hunt more," Mark Kirby said.

"When it got to be 100 (scenes), it just snowballed," Patricia said.

"But they can be hard to categorize," Mark added. "Sometimes you buy one and then find out next Christmas (when the scenes are unpacked) that you already have one."

Milam said she looks for specific pieces when she travels or she just buys what she likes. She regrets one she didn't get in Colombia. "It had two Marys," she said. "One was pregnant, and one was not. You switched them out on Christmas."

"One Starry Night" also includes a children's section, set up with puzzles, coloring pages and other Nativity-related activities. The section even includes a Nativity collection of rubber ducks.

"Some people say, 'Isn't that kind of sacrilegious?'" Mark Kirby said. "But I don't feel that way. It's a statement of what you believe. It's the Christmas spirit."

NAN Religion on 12/10/2016