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BY MELISSA LAUBER

In classical thought, there are two ways of describing a year. Annus horribilus is a Latin phrase meaning 'horrible year,' and annus mirabilis means 'year of wonders.'

I?m not certain 2006 was either. It seemed in many respects to be a year awash in the ordinary.

Look back at some of the statistics that defined the year. Vanilla was the most sold flavor of ice cream, racking up 26 percent of the sales. Bowling was the top leisure sport, followed by treadmill exercise.

On average in 2006, Americans spent 12 minutes a day on spiritual activities and four hours and 44 minutes watching television.

The sale of pencils, it was reported in an English newspaper, increased 700 percent last year because people fell prey to the year?s 'craze,' - Sudoku puzzles.

One of my favorite statistics from 2006 is that if all of the Legos in the world were evenly distributed each person would receive 30 pieces.

I don?t know why that statistic appeals to me. Perhaps it?s the sheer audacity that it took someone to figure it out and report it. Its quirkiness charms, and in odd moments I find myself imagining what each person might build with their 30 pieces, and how individuals might join their building blocks with others to build even more fantastic structures.

Legos seem like the most ordinary of toys, but when you consider what the world?s 6.5 billion people might create with their colorful plastic blocks it can boggle the mind.

Another mind-boggler is the World Population Clock www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop), which clicks away, upwards and downwards, and allows you to compare today?s population with times past.

Stumbling on the world population counter also made my imagination whirl as I considered the lives coming into and leaving our planet. What stories are unfolding in 6,564,330,776 ways all around us?

I know these are flights of fancy, but New Year?s seems like a time for reflection and far-flung musing. It?s a time when the ordinary in me seems like it might be harboring something uniquely spectacular.

The new year?s season is rich in potential - as yet undiminished or tarnished by day-to-day living.

There are few moments in life when we are afforded such optimism. However, after a brief conversation with Peggy Elliott of Community UMC in Crofton, I?m convinced that the Volunteers in Mission experience is an opportunity for all the best things of Christianity to be expected and experienced.

Over Thanksgiving, Elliott went to the Mayan village of Calel, in Guatemala. It is a town where there is no running water. People don?t bathe there, she explained, because when you have to carry water for two miles, you don?t splash it around.

The infant mortality rate is high. Isolated in a valley ringed by volcanoes, the poverty makes life hard.

The five-member VIM team from Community and Calvary UMCs went to assist Dr. Hugo Gomez, who operates a clinic there, and to build composting latrines for the villagers.

Because she had just received emergency medical technician training, Elliott assisted in the clinic, working as a 'medico.'

A makeshift dental station, with two chairs pushed together was also set up. Despite the lack of Novocain, some people had several teeth pulled.

Meanwhile in the village, more than 200 people passed through the clinic, some walking as long as four days to get there.

Elliott has preserved memories of her trip on a photo slide show on her computer. Flipping through the pictures, she points to the faces of children who are smiling in their new crocheted hats, made as a gift from a woman in this area who is living with Alzheimer?s disease.

The faces mean a lot. Whole lives are written there. Elliott tends to see God in each face.

The people whom she passed time with in the clinic taught her a great deal, she said. 'They?re more in touch with their faith. They believe God with their whole heart amid their down-in-the-dirt kind of living. Life is hard in that place. Their faith affects every moment of their lives.'

From the people, Elliott received new glimpses of grace, she said.

At 10,000 feet, among strangers, she realized God is present and amazing. There was no need for New Year?s resolutions to spice or tidy up one?s life.

The extraordinary unfolded, revealed itself and let her know what was possible when one is willing to risk reaching out in Christ?s name.

Listening to Elliott, it?s easy to imagine the world being full of flavors. In fact, that may be what discipleship and the Volunteers in Mission experience is all about - being willing to stretch beyond the ordinariness of vanilla to create moments of wonder.