Surrender

Written by one of our World Team missionaries in Indonesia.

Throughout the city, tukang parkir (parking attendants) sit outside just about every shop, restaurant, and business. Their job is to help drivers navigate tight parking spaces, keep traffic flowing, and in return, receive a few coins of spare change. Most people barely notice them. But over the past few months, I’ve gotten to know one in particular.

His name is Daeng Arman. He works outside a shop I frequent a couple times a week. We started exchanging greetings, then quick comments, and now, conversations. This past week, we ended up talking for over an hour — about Indonesia and America, about different faiths, about culture, family, and belief. Somewhere along the way, I noticed a tattoo stretching the length of his forearm, written in English: surrender.

As he asked me for help with some English phrases, I pointed to the tattoo and asked if he knew what it meant. He answered without hesitation: “Berserah. Putus asa.” To give up. To lose hope. I nodded. “That’s right,” I said, “But why did you get that?” His face changed. He became serious when, just moments earlier, we were laughing and joking. He told me that after high school, he got pulled into drugs and alcohol, which is categorized as haram by his family. In time, they rejected him completely. Shamed and outcast, he reached a point where he wanted to take his own life. The tattoo was meant to mark the final word before he acted. However, when the time came, he couldn’t follow through. “I didn’t want my family to win,” he said. When I asked if he still speaks to them, he told me no — “They don’t call me their son anymore.”

That moment opened a door. I told him that surrender means something very different in my faith. It’s not the end. It’s not giving up in despair. I told him that many years ago, I surrendered too, but in my case, not to hopelessness but to Jesus.  When I surrendered, Jesus didn’t leave me in shame or defeat. He made me clean. He made me whole. He made me a conqueror over sin.

Today, I saw Daeng Arman again. He smiled at me and said just one word: “Berserah.”

Please pray that one day, he too would surrender to Tuhan Yesus.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, You don’t turn away the broken. You restore. Please pursue Daeng Arman. Show him that surrendering to You doesn’t lead to shame, but to victory over sin and new life.