Filipino street kids playing POGS?

As I jumped off the jeepney coming home from the office, I spotted a group of street kids sitting on the side of the road playing pogs.  Seriously, I’m not sure the last time I saw kids actually playing pogs, in a tournament style or anything... definitely not on the streets of Manila.  Actually, come to think of it, I don’t think I ever even saw kids playing POGs ever!  It never was popular where I grew up... that statement will be memorialized forever in my memory. My first time interviewed by the press, and forever scarred from then on for press interviews after being scolded for being a bit too honest as I shared that POGs were not popular where I lived... or something along those lines.

Anyways, when I was 11 or 12, I was selected with 11 others from across the US to be on the World POG Federation Kids Board of Directors.  They flew a parent with each of us into LA for board meetings and pure fun for a few days. They spoiled us rotten.  Sure we had meetings in board rooms, we reviewed books they were publishing, taste tested POG candy, discussed stuff I can no longer remember... but I do clearly remember how they spoiled us rotten. From the moment we checked into the fancy hotel with welcome baskets of pogs and things, to getting off a chartered bus and literally being physically showered/attacked by POGS as the WPF staff and leaders welcomed us to their offices, to a trip to Disneyland where we acted like entitled princes and princesses, thinking we were all so cool... all the while our parents who had to accompany us like well-paid babysitters watched us at night and observed everything else.  Perhaps one day I’ll rip out my personal POG – yes they made POGs of each of us.... ridiculous... I know. Actually there was a book published about us with our pogs in them, but I cannot find it anywhere!  I saw it randomly at a Bradlees or Caldor years ago, but a couple of our pogs were actually punched out so my parents thought we would be able to locate another copy elsewhere.  We either forgot, or just failed to find one... so bummed!

Anyways the memories stirred on by the sight of these kids... having fun playing pogs.  A foreign sight in a foreign place, a distant memory, but very intentional preparation. In all of high school and most of college, the thought of entering the business world one day was the last thing I would have done.  To think back to my childhood at the ways God has been preparing me for the work I do today and where He is leading... it’s like seeing the puzzle pieces come together.  Even before the POG thing, as a really young kid, I would gather my neighbors and we’d start clubs together – I had a police club and puppy club in my parents basement, a science lab, almost organized a soccer camp for neighborhood kids (what we would have taught them I don’t know since we were quite young still!) and at one point my friend and I who were a bit crazy about baseball even started our own baseball team “Metankee” – she loved the Yankees, I loved the Mets. We had our own fake “fantasy” team as we tracked stats on Prodigy, pre AOL days, and even made business cards for ourselves for our new baseball team.  Ridonkulous... but to see how God has wired me... albeit a super shy kid, but one that sought to create and build and organize, even as a child. Still learning as I go along... truly an adventure.  No coincidences, no random events or experiences... all move forward as if filling a toolbox full of widgets that can be used when and where and how God leads as He calls us into the work we do.