From Patrol to Pakistan: The Unlikely Path of Tyler Tompkins

On this episode of Courageous Crossroads, Jeff Johnson sits down with Tyler Tompkins—
former police lieutenant, real estate entrepreneur, and board member of Exodus 51, a nonprofit that rescues Christian slaves in Pakistan. Born and raised in small-town Iowa, Tyler shares how his path from farming and law enforcement to international human rights work was shaped not by a single moment of courage, but by a long series of faithful yeses. With raw honesty, he opens up about wrestling with church hurt, rediscovering faith, and finding purpose in uncomfortable places. From riding solo as a rookie cop to freeing over 13,000 slaves overseas, Tyler reveals how courage often looks like showing up, stepping out, and trusting God with the unknown.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

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See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics. A look into what motivates us to step out in courage and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson.

Jeff Johnson: Hey, everybody. We’ve been off for a couple of weeks, and I’m excited to be back at the Courageous Crossroads microphone for a fresh new interview. I gotta tell you the truth. My son and I had an opportunity to travel to Scotland and play some golf, So I can be forgiven, can I? But I have missed you and I’ve been eager to get back to the mic and share another fun interview with you and I’ve got one today.

Gosh, this guy. Tyler Tompkins is our next guest and he’s a friend of mine that I’ve known for just a couple of years because he and I sit on the board of directors for a charitable organization that frees slaves. And I’m not gonna take away from Tyler’s story because there’s a whole lot you need to hear about that, but, Tyler has a lot to say on the topic of courage, and you’re gonna be as blessed to hear his story as I am to know him. So without further ado, here is Tyler Tompkins. Well, I’m talking to Tyler Tompkins today on the Courageous Crossroads podcast. And tell me where you’re from, your background, all that sort of thing. I know you from your business dealings with another good friend of mine who you’ve been in partnership with for a while, but I don’t know your backstory or any of that kind of stuff. So tell me a little bit about that.

Tyler Tompkins: Sure. I’ve been an Iowa guy my whole life. I grew up in Berwick. Are you familiar with Berwick?

Jeff Johnson: Berwick.

Tyler Tompkins: It’s a tiny little town between Ankeny and Des Moines.

Jeff Johnson: Okay.

Tyler Tompkins: And it used to be the home of KGGO.

Jeff Johnson: No.

Tyler Tompkins: That’s how I most that’s right. That’s how most people know it is that they use that moniker. Funny funny thing is they weren’t actually in Berwick. So but that’s how most people know about Berwick. If you didn’t know, it was there. It’s got one tiny post office. And I lived on a farm that kinda surrounded Berwick, and that’s the area that I grew up. And my father and mother owned a business, in town, a western store in town for years. And so I kinda came up being a farmer, half farmer, half business person for the first part of my life.

Jeff Johnson: A western store. Like, you’re selling a tax.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. It was called Trails End, and it was over on East Fourteenth Street. They did really well for themselves, and, you know, he unfortunately had some health issues in his middle to late fifties that the doctor told him, you know, if you don’t sell this business, you’re gonna die. Like, the stress is killing you. And so he ended up selling everything and then lived to be, I think, 84 years old. So that didn’t turn out to be true. And I I think over time, he wished he would have kept it so that he could have handed it down. But everything happens for a reason. Everything worked out. Okay.

Jeff Johnson: But he’s hold on. So he’s farming and doing the business both at the same time? Because that’s a big…

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: And back on the farming were you guys doing?

Tyler Tompkins: Well, we had cattle and then row crop as well. And it was 350 some acres, so it wasn’t huge. But back then…

Jeff Johnson: Big enough.

Tyler Tompkins: You could make a decent living 350 acres. And this would have been the middle to late eighties.

Jeff Johnson: Eighties. K.

Tyler Tompkins: And so kinda came up being the farm kid and the business kid, and then my parents essentially retired by the time I was, you know, 10, 11 years old. And so they’re around a lot. But we lived way out. If you lived way out in the eighties, even 15 miles away, that was way out. Nowadays, that’s an easy commute for somebody.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

Tyler Tompkins: So I had a lot of time to myself on the farm. And so did what farm kids do, got in trouble, rode four wheelers, crashed things, had all those great experiences. And then I started going to Sadel Schools and went there for a while. Some things were going on in that area then that probably weren’t the best educational environment. And so my parents moved me to a Catholic school. So I actually went to a Catholic school here in Des Moines, for a few years. I went there until they asked me not to come back because I was a little too active of a youth. So…

Jeff Johnson: Did you get kicked out of school?

Tyler Tompkins: They asked me not to come back. I don’t know if we’d characterize it as kicked out, but finding other other educational opportunities.

Jeff Johnson: Okay.

Tyler Tompkins: And so I actually ended up at Johnston. And I went to school at Johnston all the way through high school, had a great experience there. It’s a great school district. K. And then went to Saint Ambrose for a year. K. Didn’t care for, being over there. I didn’t really have any support system system or anything.

Jeff Johnson: Why St. Ambrose?

Tyler Tompkins: They accepted me.

Jeff Johnson: That’s a okay.

Tyler Tompkins: You’ve heard of academic probation, Jeff?

Jeff Johnson: Oh, I’m familiar.

Tyler Tompkins: Big box. I, I I knew I didn’t wanna go to a big school that I wouldn’t be good in a large institution. Mhmm. And so I was looking at where can I go where that I can do I wanted to do criminal justice? Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a police officer.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

Tyler Tompkins: And so I was looking at what had a good criminal justice degree, and they accepted me. I barely graduated high school. Now when I got to college, it was stuff I was interested in, so I got on the honor roll in college. So it’s kinda this weird dichotomy of in school, I’m learning all these in high school, I’m learning all these things that, you know, were supposed to be your foundation. Well, they weren’t interesting to me. And then…

Jeff Johnson: Now is that what you make of that? When you say barely graduated high school, is it because you were more interested in partying and running around and having fun, or was it it just didn’t catch your interest at all?

Tyler Tompkins: I I wasn’t partying running around. I mean, yeah, there was some of that, but, that really wasn’t the group that I was with. Mhmm. It was more that it just didn’t catch my interest.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

Tyler Tompkins: And didn’t keep my interest. And, you know, the standard ADD kid that nobody knew what that was back in the day, and they’d throw some pills at you and went through that and just sat there during class and sweated.

Jeff Johnson: You’d be learning more if you were skydiving off of some mountain or something.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. I’d I’d learn more by doing and getting out and being immersed in it.

Jeff Johnson: Right. So I get that.

Tyler Tompkins: So when I went to college, went there for criminal justice. It was went to Grandview. It was great. I had a great experience there. Actually, got involved in a bunch of the, like, government things and which was not my personality. And but I I really enjoyed it, and I think it taught me a lot about social skills and people, that kind of stuff. Mhmm. And then while I was working at, or while I was going to school, I started working at the police department in Johnston. And not as an officer, but I stopped in one day and said, hey. I’m interested in being an officer. I don’t know if you have any jobs. And she said, oh, actually, we’re looking for administrative assistant. I’m like, I’ll take it. And so I started this job in the office. Unfortunately, like, three months after I started, the main lady quit. And so the chief at that time didn’t have a way to replace her quickly, didn’t have anybody to train her. So I just kinda figured it out as I went along. So I spent a few years of college getting up at 05:00 in the morning, going to the police department, entering all the tickets, doing some of the dispatching. And then I’d go to my classes in the morning. I’d come back in the afternoon, work the rest of the afternoon, and then I’d go to my night classes. And I spent a few years in college doing that.

Jeff Johnson: Man, good for you. That’s industrious. So were you were you always interested in being a police officer? Or Criminal justice? Did you wanna be a lawyer? Or…

Tyler Tompkins: No. I I always wanted to be a police officer. I I can’t tell you what ticked that in the beginning. Mhmm. But I always had a thing for taking care of people that couldn’t take care of themselves.

Jeff Johnson: Wow.

Tyler Tompkins: And so that led me straight to law enforcement. I wish I could go back and find a lot of people have cool stories of this is what happened. This is the exact point that pointed me that way. I just always been that way.

Jeff Johnson: If you saw somebody being bullied, that didn’t sit with you?

Tyler Tompkins: No. No.

Jeff Johnson: You were that kind of person.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. I felt if I had the ability to help somebody and they didn’t have the ability to help themselves, why wouldn’t I?

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Were your parents like that?

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. I would say so. I think that given the opportunity, they would step up. And they’re, you know, I would say similar to me where they don’t wanna be the front person for it, but they’re happy to help on the backside. And your their thanks then is seeing that person improve or that situation improve. Mhmm. Things like that. I can look back at my mother and, you know, doing some of the junior league stuff and some of the private stuff that they did just to, help the community, but they never want a notoriety for it.

Jeff Johnson: Very altruistic. That’s such a good quality.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. I’m I’m glad they in instilled it in me. But when I was working at the police department, you know, I’m getting ready to graduate, and I just walked in the chief’s office. And I was like, well, I guess it’s time for me to get a job. And, he goes, yeah. Do you wanna apply? I said, yeah. I’m gonna apply here in Des Moines as well. He said, okay. Well, let me know. We got an opening. And so we started down that road, and it was during a time when Des Moines had gone through the whole hiring process. And then by the time they got to it, went, oh, sorry. We don’t have any money to hire anybody.

Jeff Johnson: Oh.

Tyler Tompkins: So check back in a year or so, a different budget year.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

Tyler Tompkins: And so we just went through the whole process in Johnston. And next thing you know, I’m on the street. Haven’t been to the academy yet because you could do that back then. And, I…

Jeff Johnson: What’s the normal what’s the normal process?

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. Typically, nowadays, because of liability, I think you can still technically be on the street for six months or or whatever that duration is before you have to go to the academy. But he kicked me right out thinking I had worked there this long, and I should know what what is happening. Well, I mean, I’d been out with the guys, and I’d been around the guys for a few years now. Mhmm. But as far as the intricacies enforcement, they were still eluding me a little bit. At that point, you know, I didn’t realize that most of law enforcement is social skills. It’s not car chases. It’s not carrying a gun. It’s not a lot of the stuff that you see in the movies. It’s being able to have a conversation with somebody and connect with that person. That’s how you can get things done and…

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

Tyler Tompkins: And get through situations. So I was working midnight, and I was by myself. And that’s just how I started law enforcement, figuring it out.

Jeff Johnson: How old are you when you’re out on the When you say out on the street, I assume that means they give you a gun and a badge and a car and say, here’s where we want you to be hanging out.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. The whole nine. Yeah. It was the whole town that I worked in at that point.

Jeff Johnson: Okay.

Tyler Tompkins: And he said, you know, go and do your thing. Be a cop. So I was like, okay. And I’ll go be what I think a cop is. But there were a lot of good guys there that worked there and still are, that really take to heart helping other officers. You know, you’re a cop for a long time. Pulling over cars and doing some of these things can get tiresome. And a lot of the older cops, they get their fulfillment by helping newer cops come along and teaching them what law enforcement’s really about. Mhmm. So I’m glad I had some of those that I could could lean on.

Jeff Johnson: Do you remember the first person you arrested?

Tyler Tompkins: No. I can remember the first few that I screwed up, but the first person I arrested, no. I can’t remember that. I remember measuring myself and making sure that I was doing everything right by kind of stepping into things. So I’d go out and I write a bunch of warnings as opposed to writing a bunch of tickets. Right? Mhmm. Because tickets, there’s actual financial component to that. Warnings, if I screw it up, nobody really cares. So I kinda stepped into some of these things on my own just trying to make sure I didn’t make that big of mistake. I knew I was gonna make mistakes.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Well, okay. Let’s bail out there for just a second. I wanna come back to this point. But this is the courageous crossroads where we come down to the question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? I’m not gonna ask you that just yet, but I’ll get to that. But I do wanna calibrate you with this idea of courage because already, Tyler, I’m thinking about all of these courageous I can’t imagine what that would be like to have a gun and a badge and that kind of authority, it just makes me nervous even thinking about that. And then let alone util using that to protect the community. And like you said, wanting to make sure that man, lord, I hope I don’t get this wrong. You know? Yeah. So how do you define courage? Like, what does courage mean to you?

Tyler Tompkins: I think it’s it’s the ability to do things that are difficult. And it’s not, I guess, just the ability. It’s going through and doing those things when they’re difficult. You know, it’s easy to sit back and have fear and be have analysis paralysis or not take the next step because you’re afraid of what the outcome is gonna be. I definitely have had those times in my life and had to counsel myself in my head or others counsel me about pushing through because you read any self help book or anything on the Internet. Well, a lot of it can be different. A lot of it holds the same theme is that unless you get out of your comfort zone, unless you push through that next time in life or that next session in life, that you’re just gonna be stuck where you’re at. And I always wanted to keep moving forward. I was scared to death of being static.

Jeff Johnson: But you didn’t wanna farm. You didn’t have the opportunity to run the the family store…

Tyler Tompkins: Right.

Jeff Johnson: Because that had already been sold. But you weren’t interested in you were interested in criminal justice. You’ve got this altruistic thing about you. Did you feel like did you have the sense that God’s already equipped me with a certain amount of courage, so I need to go do this thing? Did you feel like you were a courageous person?

Tyler Tompkins: No. No.

Jeff Johnson: Really?

Tyler Tompkins: And my my path in Christianity, has been winding as a lot are. I wish it was straight as an arrow, but, you know, you spend some time in Catholic school and you see some things that you don’t necessarily agree with, and you go along, through life and find times when people have put themselves up there as a Christian leader, and someone that you should be following fail, whether it be in the church or outside the church. And so I heard the term, and I didn’t even know it existed, of church hurt. Mhmm. And so until in the last few years, a lot of my issues with the church have been things in the past. They’ve been things that people have done. Now I had a pastor recently, the church I’m at now, say to me I sat down with him, and we were talking about Exodus, which you’re aware of. And he asked me why I haven’t joined this specific church. And I kinda gave him the whole idea of, you know, I’m I’m tired of people letting me down. I’m tired of and I said at the point, the church letting me down. Mhmm. And he said, I want you to understand, I’m gonna screw up. I’m gonna do something that you don’t agree with. I’m gonna sin. I’m gonna do things God doesn’t agree with at times. I’m going to make those mistakes. What I want you to do is continue to follow Jesus. Continue to follow the scripture.

Jeff Johnson: That’s good.

Tyler Tompkins: And that kinda hit me a little bit different because a lot of the churches I’ve been a part of before, you had almost this person up there that put put themselves up there as like a pseudo deity that I need to be followed and what I say goes. And and here’s this humble man in front of me saying, don’t do that. Follow follow God. Follow Jesus. I’m gonna deliver it the best I can to you, but I’m gonna screw up.

Jeff Johnson: Right.

Tyler Tompkins: And so I just love that, the way he delivered it, and it kinda changed my view on going to church in general.

Jeff Johnson: Okay. So now take that back because where we started with this thread was you not feeling like you’re a courageous person, not identifying as a courageous person. But you’ve got all of these skills that lead you to this law enforcement thing for protecting the other guy. Mhmm. So you didn’t you didn’t identify yourself as a…

Tyler Tompkins: No. I I did not identify myself as a courageous person, and I don’t know if I still do today.

Jeff Johnson: Really?

Tyler Tompkins: I think that I take opportunities that are presented to me, and I’ve come to, in the last few years, realize that God has been winding through my life this whole time to get me to where I’m at today. Mhmm. And I’ve just taken those opportunities. You know, I I would say that part may be courageous is taking those leaps when I wasn’t sure what the other side looked like. But as far as doing the law enforcement thing and some of the other things I’ve done in life, I I guess I never viewed them as courageous.

Jeff Johnson: Wow.

Tyler Tompkins: It was a duty.

Jeff Johnson: Okay. Now take so now take me back because I I don’t know you as a police officer. I know you as a businessman. Mhmm. I think I met you probably right when you were retiring.

Tyler Tompkins: Yep.

Jeff Johnson: But how long did you stay in law enforcement?

Tyler Tompkins: Twenty two and a half years.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. So a full career.

Tyler Tompkins: Yep. Yep.

Jeff Johnson: In law enforcement, and you retired.

Tyler Tompkins: Yep. I had a point where our state retirement would kick in, when I do turn 55. And so I just thought it prudent to stay that long. I’d already been in, you know, twenty some years when I was looking at I was having a successful business, and I was looking at, you know, spending more time with my family and what’s important for my family. And at that point, it looked like going the business route and and removing myself from law enforcement, which was changing drastically Mhmm. At that time. This would have been about twenty twenty.

Jeff Johnson: Okay.

Tyler Tompkins: And during that time, getting out and focusing on something completely different.

Jeff Johnson: Oh, there’s so much I wanna talk to you about about all this stuff. Did you did you find it refreshing? Or refreshing is a terrible word, Jeff. Enriching? Do you feel like you accomplished what you were meant to accomplish in the police force?

Tyler Tompkins: It was a successful career. I think it was a successful career. I left as a lieutenant in the department. A lot of great people that I would like to think I helped come along in law enforcement that I could leave duties to and responsibilities behind. And now they’re leading that department and doing much better than I ever could. They they built on things that and mistakes that I had made through law enforcement time. Because my time on this department was the city had, like, skyrocketing growth. And so we went from when I first got there, I think we were eleven, twelve officers to when I left, we were in the high thirties.

Jeff Johnson: Oh, wow.

Tyler Tompkins: So there was a lot of movement, a lot of hiring, a lot of things happen, a lot of growth. And I think if I look at a law enforcement and I use this word lightly legacy is that those that are still there, that they benefited from my time at the department and made the department better.

Jeff Johnson: What what happened in 2020 to make your exodus from the police force, your retirement, more palatable to you?

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. So 2020, if you remember, there were riots across the country, race riots, all different kinds of riots, honestly. And at that point, I had, a few years before that, went to the chief and started a we called the QRT quick reaction team because we are part of local SWAT teams, and those guys are super dynamic and high speed, do a great job at what they do. What we were lacking, given we were a smaller department, even though we had 30 some officers or only maybe a handful on at a full on at a time and something happens, we don’t have a local team that can just step in and at least get the problem quelled or stabilized until these larger metro teams could come in. And we needed something that could fill that void. And so it must have been around 1718 we started this quick reaction team at the police department. And we train on all different kinds of things. It wasn’t just a tactical team. We trained on, doing search warrants, like writing search warrants. We trained on finding missing people and different ways to search and find missing people in an open area or in a a wooded area. So it was a lot of different things, and it gave the department a lot more options when something would happen. Well, when 2020 happened and we had all the riots, Des Moines PD was having a lot of, problem getting full staffing. They didn’t have enough staff to handle all the disturbances around town. So they had asked our team to come up.

Jeff Johnson: Were quitting or things were just getting more chaotic?

Tyler Tompkins: No. There were just so there was just so much happening. Matter of fact, I have a buddy, in New York. He worked for the New York PD, and he does a lot of training and stuff now. He had actually reached out to us in Des Moines and got asked, hey. Are you guys okay? Like, I’m seeing Des Moines on the news…

Jeff Johnson: Wow.

Tyler Tompkins: …in 2020 with everything that’s going on. You know, we had people trying to light fire to our courthouse. We had people trying to light fires to our Capitol, and breaking in and and stealing documents. And it was it was very dynamic, and it was very dangerous at that those early stages. And so we went down and helped Des Moines. And through that whole process, I just kinda came to realization that I’ve done my time in law enforcement. I feel comfortable with where or what I’m going to leave the department. My family is becoming more important to me daily because my kids are getting older. I now have two kids. They’re young. I wanna be able to do things with them. And I have a business that at that time was taken off doing a lot after hours. I’d work sixteen, eighteen hour days for…

Jeff Johnson: Man.

Tyler Tompkins: …months on end. It was just, part of where it was part of my end game. I knew at some point I was gonna step out of law enforcement and go into real estate. Mhmm. But when? I didn’t know. Well, 2020 provided me that. And I just didn’t wanna be a part of a lot of the stuff that was going on in society at that point and wanted to refocus on my family.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Makes sense. Okay. So now go to the business piece. So that overlapped with your retirement from law enforcement, but what is the business?

Tyler Tompkins: So kind of a multifaceted real estate business. We, rent apartments to people. We renovate apartments and houses. We have commercial property. We manage all of our own stuff. We manage stuff for other people. So there’s a lot of lot to it, and it really started. Matter of fact, funny thing is when I started at the police academy, the same week I started at the police academy was the same week I closed on my first investment property. And so I had to get special permission to leave the police academy to run out, sign documents…

Jeff Johnson: Oh.

Tyler Tompkins: And then start getting phone calls about plugged toilets and things not getting done, which, you know, taught me a lot. But…

Jeff Johnson: So you had business acumen, I suppose, that you got from your parents from them running the tax store.

Tyler Tompkins: I had business Drive. My father, it was a retail store. He didn’t understand real estate. Mhmm. He didn’t think it was a good investment. He didn’t know. Mhmm. Bottom line. Real estate’s a much different investment than, you know, active trader business investments. And so with going into real estate, I didn’t necessarily I had their support as parents. I did not have his support as a business person. My mother, super supportive, always been supportive of me in in everything, and I I appreciate that for from her. That really, you know, helped push me over the edge. Plus, you know, at that point, I’m I have a girlfriend who ends up being my wife, and she’s uber supportive as well. So all of those things were able to help push me into, doing both at the same time. I had people behind me that believed in me, and that gave me the belief that I could do it.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. And it was successful?

Tyler Tompkins: It was successful. Yeah. I mean, we that one was successful. I had a mentor that did a lot of development in a neighboring town that he said to me one time, I’ll never give any money, but I’ll give you all the advice that I got. And so I went and sold my truck and my motorcycle at the time, that, you know, I had worked hard to get because I thought that’s what I wanted when I was, you know, in my early early twenties. And I found at 22, that’s not what I was interested in. So I sold those, and I took the money, and I went and bought this investment property. And then just kept kind of buying here and there and running it, not being very aggressive at that time. This would have been mid two two thousand five, six, seven. And then I met my business partner who actually also was a officer at Johnston at the time. And we just had a conversation one day. He had worked hard for a long period of time and saved up money and wanted to do something with it. He saw what I was doing, was interested. And I said, hey. Let’s buy one single family house together and see how it goes. And the rest has been going now for almost fifteen years.

Jeff Johnson: And this is not a small business. I mean, you…

Tyler Tompkins: Not anymore.

Jeff Johnson: Right? You’ve got a fair amount of square footage there.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. I mean, I don’t and I don’t keep an eye on how many apartments we have, but we have we ownership with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of apartments. We manage, you know, thousands of apartments, and then we have hundreds of thousands of square feet of commercial space commercial space as well. So it’s grown a lot. And, you know, I’m thankful for all the people that provided the support to be able to do that. Because, again, if I didn’t have the support of my my wife, I don’t have the support of my family, I have the support of a business partner, I sure would have struggled believing that I could have got to this point.

Jeff Johnson: The the courage that it takes to to fight crime, let me put it that way, and the courage that it takes to, make good business decisions and go with the ebbs and flows of the business environment. Same kind of courage, different kind of courage.

Tyler Tompkins: The law enforcement part of it, I alluded it alluded to it earlier. It was duty. I felt a duty to the people that I was protecting. So the, protecting. So the, quote, scary parts or dangerous parts, that was my duty that I pledged that I was going to do. Mhmm. The business part, that took, honestly, a lot more stress and planning and a lot more anxiety was the business part. The law enforcement part, I felt like I knew what I needed to do. There was a path I could look and ask others. There were things I could do that would lead me down the right path. At that point, when I started in business, there wasn’t all of the stuff that they have now of this is how you get into real estate. This is what you do here. You just figured it out. I was lucky I had that mentor I could call and say, hey. What do I do now? But that was one guy. And so I just kinda figured it out over time and learned and had those sleepless nights and anxiety. So that kinda courage was built up over time through trials and errors. And now today, I can kinda look back and go, that built me to where I’m at today. That gave me the courage today to go do some of these things because I know I’ve already been through something that’s worse or something that’s like it, and I survived.

Jeff Johnson: Now I’m gonna ask you this question. What’s the most craziest thing you ever done? But I’m not gonna ask it just yet because you got one more facet that I wanna investigate a little bit. I know you primarily through your work with Exes fifty one, which is a five zero one c three that you and I both sit on the board of. And you are very front lines, very active with that ministry, very active with that ministry, and you have been from the beginning. How did you you’re still involved in business now. So you’re doing the same thing that you did with the police force. You’re overlapping two things. Now you’re overlapping this Yep. X fifty one stuff. But we’ve had Brandon McNason already. So we’ve talked about XS fifty one. But remind our listeners what XS fifty one is and how did you get involved with that.

Tyler Tompkins: XS 51 goes into some of the darkest places in the world and brings Jesus along, presents Jesus to people that in that area aren’t necessarily able to worship him worship him openly, as well as Christians that are being held in slavery in The Middle East. Specifically, we operate right now in Pakistan. So we go in and we work with a amazing in country team that works much harder than we do, works much more hours, and has unbelievable belief in God to free I think we’re at 13,400 and some odd slaves…

Jeff Johnson: Incredible.

Tyler Tompkins: …in the last three years…

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

Tyler Tompkins: …that have been freed because of this partnership between Brandon and the Pakistani side. The rest of us, we’re along for the ride.

Jeff Johnson: Am I wrong?

Tyler Tompkins: We’re here to help where we can.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. But you’re over there all that. You just got back from another trip to Pakistan, Tyler. So you and I’ve never been.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: So you’ve like Brandon always likes to say, everything over there is trying to kill you. The air, the water, the people, the food, the, you know, all that kind of stuff. How did you first get involved with Exit 51?

Tyler Tompkins: So Brandon, by chance, was at a Christian men’s retreat that I attended with my business partner down in Texas. Mhmm. Adventures of the Heart. And I didn’t know Brandon, never heard of Brandon before. We talked a little bit during that week. Oddly enough, this Adventures of the Heart focused on hearing God. So I’d been to Catholic school. Again, we go back. I’ve been to multiple different churches around different pastors, how they pastor differently, and how you’re supposed to talk to God and pray. But nobody had ever really told me how you receive information back from how you feel him. And I thought that was an interesting that was an interesting topic. And so they’d send us out on this ranch. It’s 10,000 acres or whatever and and say, you can’t talk to anybody else. You talk to God. And so we’d go out and we’d sit and talk and then try and receive that information back. And so Brandon and I, again, had talked during this, a lot of the group time, but we’re at the airport. And we just start having a conversation. What do you do? What do you do? And I’m explaining, you know, I do real estate now. I was a police officer. And this is about a year, almost almost exactly a year since I left law enforcement. And I had been telling my wife, like, I gotta find something to fill my service bucket. And I hear about all these organizations that send money overseas to do certain things, but you’re never sure if it gets done. And it maybe doesn’t have the direct impact that I was looking for. And so Brandon said, why free Christian slaves? And I was like, well, you’re gonna have to tell me more about that. And so he’s telling me, and he’s we’re having a conversation. I said, well, I can kinda equate a little bit of information because I had done some work in Kosovo. So Kosovo has sister state with Iowa. And during my time in law enforcement, I had gone over there and helped set up an international kids camp. I had done law enforcement training there and here for their officers over there, had done some government work, had actually done some private industry work over….there as well for a short time. And so I had operated overseas and had some insight for Brandon on some of his pinch points at that point. I think at that point, it was only and I say only, but it was amazing. 300 freed slaves…

Jeff Johnson: Right.

Tyler Tompkins: When he and I first started having a conversation. And Brandon, who’s the ultimate visionary…

Jeff Johnson: Mhmm.

Tyler Tompkins: …realized I need help with some of these other things that I don’t know anything about. And he said, would you be interested in going over? And I said, I don’t know, man. I said, I’ll talk to my wife about it. And while I was interested in it, it was almost like you put up Pakistan with. Right. Right. Would you like to go to Pakistan? When are you going? I don’t know. Let’s figure it out. And so I went home and I prayed about it using some of the new conversations that I had just learned and new techniques that I had just learned at Adventures of the Heart, which I thought was timely. Right?

Jeff Johnson: That’s right.

Tyler Tompkins: And I talked to my wife, and Pakistan just kept showing up at that point in front of me. And so I tried to put it off at the beginning. Like, you get a new minivan. You see minivans everywhere. Right? Well, Well, it just kept punching me in the face. And I think it was my wife that eventually said…

Jeff Johnson: You’re supposed to go.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. And so I called Brandon, and I said, look. I think I’m supposed to go. When do you wanna go? He goes, how about two weeks? It’s like, sure, man. I I got nothing going in two weeks. Let’s figure it out. And so we went over, and I had had the opportunity to travel a lot as a child. And those opportunities were great. It gave me great perspective. And then also seeing things in law enforcement, it jades you. It jades everybody in law enforcement. But I had been in investigations for fifteen years while at some level while I was there. And so every dead body, every sexual abuse case, all of that kind of stuff, I had an involvement in. So pictures, you know, smells, all of that kind of stuff. So I thought I was pretty jaded on all of that. I went over there. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. It affected me unbelievably. I I can’t put it into words. Like, unless you see it, taste it, feel it, I often say this about Pakistan, it’s hard to put into words as to what slavery looks like over there for these Christians that on a daily basis are just trying to survive. Some of them, vast majority of them, don’t even know what freedom is. So take somebody that doesn’t know what freedom is. They don’t know what it is. We just talked, this morning. You and I had a conversation about we interviewed these slaves, and we said, you know, how often do you get meat in your meals? They just shook their head. What do you mean? They go, we’ve never tasted meat. We can’t afford that. And so they’re having tiny little bits of bread and chili water, and they’re deciding which one of their kids can eat tonight or which one of the adults can eat. And at the same time, horrific things are happening to their family and their kids as they’re on this brick kiln. And so it I go back to what I said in the beginning, what God must have placed on my heart when I was a child about helping those that can’t help themselves. Mhmm. It fit directly into that. That’s not something I said after Pakistan. That was something I said when I got into law enforcement. So it wasn’t just something that I felt bad about. I feel like God has wound my life through all of these different areas and given me all of these opportunities that has led me to help where I’m supposed to be now in Pakistan.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. Wow. And so now you’ve been a part of this for a couple years?

Tyler Tompkins: A little over two years.

Jeff Johnson: How many times have you been there?

Tyler Tompkins: Nine. This will be my tenth.

Jeff Johnson: So you’re coming up on you guys are going back in another couple weeks.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. What’s that like to free somebody?

Tyler Tompkins: So I’m not an emotional person. Like, being in law enforcement, I especially in investigations, if I can’t if I can’t keep my emotions in check, then I can’t provide you the justice as the victim that you deserve. Mhmm. And so seeing all of the, you know, dead bodies and kids and all of that awful stuff, I always kept that in the back of my head as soon as I started to feel that emotion. Well, after a while, that just trains the emotion right out of you. Mhmm. It’s still there. You’re stuffing it down, but it trains it out of you, that reaction. And the one time, mind you, most people when we go to Pakistan, there is crying, there is not understanding. Brandon and I now counselor is a strong word. We now help counsel people through what they’re seeing because we’ve found…

Jeff Johnson: People that you take on the trip with.

Tyler Tompkins: Right. I’m sorry. I didn’t explain that well. We the people that come over from, you know, partner churches and partner organizations that wanna come over and and see what’s happening firsthand, they have a strong emotional response to what they’re seeing because it’s not like anything they’ve ever seen before. And so Brandon and I now spend time again, counseling is a strong word, but counseling them through what they’re seeing, why they’re seeing it, the history of it, and give them some time to process it. But I needed that at one point. I remember exactly where I was at. I could take you to the brick kiln that we were on. There was a young girl coming towards me with, what would have been a tricycle at one point, now had one front wheel, and that was her toy. And we had just freed her family. And she came back and or she ran back. She got that tricycle because that was the most important thing in the world to her. I knew she’d just been freed. Her whole family had been freed. And they’re walking off, and it’s later in the evening. The sun’s setting behind them, and I just broke down. These people have no idea what they’re going to. They’re throwing all of their belief in Jesus behind what’s happening now. They don’t know what freedom is, Jeff. And so these people it was the first second. I gotta be a part, and I still get to be a part of the first second of these people’s freedom life. And it’s it’s one of the most rewarding things that I’ve ever been been a part of. And right there, I had to turn away and, you know, tears came to my eyes. I broke down. And I got it back together, and we got them out of there and got them to the the, you know, apartments and and, got them their food for the next six months so that they could have some strong, support that they’re gonna need as they learn how to live on their own. Mhmm. But that was tough.

Jeff Johnson: And they do well in that?

Tyler Tompkins: They do well. We’ve not had anyone go back into slavery out of the 13,400 for them.

Jeff Johnson: Well, I can go back to the same life that I had before. And That is an option for them.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. Nobody goes back. The difference is a lot on the brick kiln is they could go back and actually make decent money on the brick kiln. But if that person that’s running that place is making them work an amazing amount of hours, not paying them anything Mhmm. Or treating them or their family poorly, Before, they didn’t have an option. Now they can walk away. Mhmm. That’s one of the biggest freedoms they have is they get to decide their future going forward, what they wanna do. We have people starting their own business over there, which for a Christian in Pakistan is not normal. Starting their own business, raising their own families, and we get to see them after the fact as well. The the light in their eyes. When you see them on the brick kiln I don’t say this lightly, it reminds me of someone that’s been sexually assaulted. You see a deadness in their eye. Two, three, four, five months later, even a year later, you can still see it, the deadness, but we also see a light. And they get to go and see their kids go to school and change their kids’ future, change their family’s future. So it’s it’s an organization and that has changed my life, and God led me to this organization. God’s doing all this. We talk about this all the time.

Jeff Johnson: Right.

Tyler Tompkins: You know, people always ask us questions about it and are unfamiliar with it and are then surprised that people from The US are doing this work.

Jeff Johnson: We’re just the conduit for God’s resources.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. He’s just pouring all over this thing.

Jeff Johnson: Totally. Well and God bless you for doing what you’re doing, Tyler. We’re gonna put contact information for Exodus 51 in the show notes. And I guess Tyler and I would just, ask everybody who’s listening to this emphatically, just give all of your money to Exodus 51. Just I normally wanna say, whatever the Lord lays on your heart to give no. Let’s just could you just give all of it? Where else can your dollar go farther than giving somebody their freedom?

Tyler Tompkins: Free and slave. $250 is typically what it costs to free somebody. $50 for six months of food and housing to get them back on their feet, get them connected with the church, and they do great. They do fabulous.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. Okay. Let’s come back to the reason that you’re sitting here, Tyler, because you’ve given us a beautiful backstory and a good perspective of who you are. I’m curious to know, and everybody listening is curious to know, Tyler Tompkins, what is the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

Tyler Tompkins: It’s not one thing, and I’ve alluded to it a couple times since we’ve talked is obviously, I knew you were gonna ask this question. And so I had a moment to think about it, and I don’t think a lot of the individual things that I do is courageous. If I look back at what God has laid out in my life, it is taking those opportunities, all of those ones that have led me to this place to do his work in Pakistan. The courageousness is not an individual thing or one search warrant or one business decision. It’s been all of those all of those speed bumps that he’s put in my life or right turns or sometimes wrong turns Mhmm. That I’ve taken that have given me the ability to help with the organization where I’m at now and make me the person I am now. I think that is probably the most courageous thing I can say has impacted my life in in ways that I would have never guessed.

Jeff Johnson: So it’s the it’s the breadcrumbs?

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. It’s following the breadcrumbs and taking those opportunities when they’re available. A lot of people we talked about it before, analysis paralysis or they get scared. All of that stuff is real, but if you don’t take those opportunities that are put in front of you, you may never reach where God’s trying to get you.

Jeff Johnson: Well, and that’s beautiful. That that works perfectly with your definition of courage where you talk about it’s about action. It’s not just about doing the thing.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: It’s it’s the action actually. Not thinking contemplating doing the thing, I should say, but actually doing the thing. So people are gonna listen to this and say, oh, great. Because I’m sure God’s laid something in front of me and I have rejected it or gone the opposite direction or something like that. Have you had that experience with your breadcrumbs?

Tyler Tompkins: Sure. Sure. I I think…

Jeff Johnson: Yet you’re still where you’re at.

Tyler Tompkins: Absolutely. I mean, God’s gonna keep pursuing you. And I think that that’s one of the greatest things about following God is he’s gonna continue to pursue you. I continue to sin. I continue to do dumb things. And I try not to, and I try and be a better Christian. But God is going to continue to pursue you, put those things in front of you. Ultimately, it’s up to you whether you take those opportunities or not.

Jeff Johnson: Okay. So Romans eleven twenty nine, which is one of my favorites, says God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. So you’re you would say you’re a living example of that.

Tyler Tompkins: Absolutely.

Jeff Johnson: I mean, God intended for you to be free and slaves in Pakistan. You don’t know what he’s got for you fifteen, twenty years down the road, but right now he’s got you free and slaves in Pakistan. And because of the yeses that you’ve put together courageously up until now, here’s where you are. But that verse says, if you try to run from it, Good luck.

Tyler Tompkins: Right. It’s gonna keep showing up. God’s gonna keep showing up.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. So it’s it’s important. It’s as you said, if somebody looks at this and goes, oh, I said no to all these things, consider the next thing to say yes and see where it leads you. And the next thing after that and the next thing after that.

Tyler Tompkins: That’s it. God will get you right back on track.

Jeff Johnson: It’s it’s what he does.

Tyler Tompkins: With whatever his will is.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. That’s amazing.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: Who do you view as courageous people? We’re gonna be rounding this out here. A couple more questions. Who do you view as a courageous person?

Tyler Tompkins: People that are able to do things that are outside what they believe they can do. So if you don’t believe that you can run a marathon, but the opportunity is presenting itself to go run a marathon, try and say yes and try and go do that. I think that type of stuff is courageous. I don’t necessarily think it’s courageous to continue to do the same thing over and over again, especially if you have opportunities presenting in front of you. And it could be a business opportunity. It could be a spiritual opportunity. It could be an emotional opportunity. You gotta look for those opportunities. I I said it when I retired from the police department to the younger officers that had just started. I’m where I’m at today because I took the opportunities that were in front of me, and I tried to make the best of whatever it was. Even if it wasn’t an opportunity I wanted to do, it was an opportunity to learn to get where I wanted to go. Mhmm.

Jeff Johnson: Do we live in a courageous society?

Tyler Tompkins: No.

Jeff Johnson: We’re lacking?

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. We’re we’re too comfortable. We’ve made our lives too comfortable that it’s easy to not go and do the difficult things. I can go to a movie. I can go to a restaurant. I can sit and watch TV.

Jeff Johnson: Leonard said, how am I able to pull down the strongholds of Satan if I don’t have the strength to put down the remote control? Do you know what I mean?

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah.

Jeff Johnson: That is that what you’re talking about?

Tyler Tompkins: It is. Yeah. We’re just we’re very comfortable. I try and be cognizant of not getting too comfortable in my life. I’ll I will gravitate towards comfort every time. So it is a this isn’t a Tyler thing. This is a mental thing that I try and reiterate to my myself of, okay. You’ve already done this. You’re comfortable here. Mhmm. This other thing’s coming up. Is that something that we wanna do? And I fight with myself all the my comfortability. I fight with my own comfortability all the time. So this isn’t a a preaching session. I do that constantly where I’m like, I am too comfortable in where I’m at now, and I am not growing. I’m not moving forward.

Jeff Johnson: Okay. So this is interesting. Maybe we’ll wrap you up here, but this is an interesting thought. I’m gonna have you back for part two for this stuff, Tyler, because this is good stuff. CS Lewis says that nobody has any idea of what they’re capable of doing, and most people don’t ever get to it unless they absolutely have to.

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. I think that’s true.

Jeff Johnson: And the other thing in the Bible says that without faith, it’s impossible to please God. And faith is it’s not it’s not, not trusting God and knowing that he’s got your back and all that sort of thing. You know? That’s not it. It’s not the blind leap or anything like that. But you don’t know. I mean, you have to trust him. So is that where courage lies? Is that where you’re at with your life, free and slaves? And…

Tyler Tompkins: Yeah. I mean, when God came back in, God was always there. When I came back to God is a better way to put it, more seriously after he led me through to Pakistan, it really felt like I was home. Like, I was where I was supposed to be. And that’s difficult to to deal with because that’s this isn’t comfortable. It is not comfortable to go over there. We have great partners over there. The government’s been great to us. Law enforcement, military, all of them have been great to us, but it is not a comfortable place for an American to be. And had I not been training myself over time to do the uncomfortable things or other people do the uncomfortable things, the final thing that maybe God has set you up for or a big thing that’s God set you up for, you may not be prepared for. And so for me, I think pushing yourself closer to God and doing those things that he set up for you allows you to get to that point that God wants you and be his servant.

Jeff Johnson: Mhmm. Last question. How do you know when God’s opening a door for you? Exactly. Answer that exactly so people know exactly, and there’s no…

Tyler Tompkins: There’s no answer to that. Right? I mean, you take those opportunities. You make the best decision based on the information that you have, and you go forward. Sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes you make the wrong decision. But I think if you keep doing it and you do it with the right intentions and you do it in a godly way, that you’re gonna get where God wants you to go. I there’s no test that every decision you make is going to be perfect. Mhmm. I don’t have it. I just try and make decisions based on what I think is going to be best going forward.

Jeff Johnson: And I wish I had some deep answer for you, Jeff, but that is a very hard question. Yeah. And I don’t think that there’s an answer I can only answer for myself.

Tyler Tompkins: By your own admission, though, you haven’t gotten every single one of them right. But here you sit, so your life is a testament to saying yes to God.

Jeff Johnson: And I applaud you for it.

Tyler Tompkins: And I didn’t even know it at the time. Remember, I spent years…

Jeff Johnson: Right.

Tyler Tompkins: …years, outside the church not knowing God as I should. And I still don’t know God as I should. I’m still pursuing. I need to learn scripture all the time.

Jeff Johnson: Of us. Yep.

Tyler Tompkins: You know? So I I didn’t even know it at the time, but he was he was working me. He was working me.

Jeff Johnson: Tyler Tompkins, defender of God’s people, defender of slaves in Pakistan, man of God, man of great courage, I’m blessed to know you. Thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Tyler Tompkins: Thanks for having me, Joe.

Jeff Johnson: Thank you for joining us today on Courageous.

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