Interview with H2OLiFe - Kevin Foster

Introduce our guest, Kevin Foster. Welcome to the program. Thank you very much. Great to be here with you, guys, Brian and Trent and Emma you I'm included. So last year we did a segment it was a Veteran Voices and American hero Stories and it was the veterans that had come through that live here and I metiment monument terists or in one case, your son in law and they came in and talked to about what it was like to be in the military. And I know you and I had this conversation Kevin, there's a lot of people in the Lynchburg area that give their time and I know you do, and we've just had that conversation that you know, American heroes don't have to just be veterans. It can be what they do for the globe, for the world, for our community. And we discussed it. I was like, man, why don't you come on and talk about what you do which is fascinating to me, and talk about H two O life and how you got involved and what got it started and what your mission was and how it just grew and if you could give a little bit of story of what. You do yeah, before we start, I want to give you guys some swag, get you some hats and some moet. He's over here. Sorry, Emma, I didn't know you were here. I'll make sure that you get some swag. And before we jump into that, I mean, like, how long have you guys known each other? Ninety four nine? Okay, So he lets you use his condo in February. You know you know I'm going with this, right, I mean, like, come on, bro, I mean. You're welcome to go about. June July except October February. Like, no, no, no, no, no, come on, that's an airbnb, my band. I understand, I understand me. You've known each other forever. Dude, he's not that good a friend. Okay, all right, I see how things are. Like, Yeah, and he likes the beach during the wintertime. More than the summertime. I'm not a summertime okay. Crowds are too big. April is a pretty nice You don't have to wear a jacket, you know, So February you could have a parker and a pullover and a hoodie. And I'm pretty sure they thought I was a squad because there was nobody else there. Yeah, and what's up with to do? I mean, you know, you guys got to do going on in here. It's just our drink each week, drinking choice or Yeah, it gets a little caffeine in us and gets us going. I got my own sweet tea, so I'll stick with that. Waiting on Pepsi to throw some money in any way, let's go Pepsi does not happened. We're working. Yeah, I don't want to extend my limits here, but I mean, obviously coke might be into play. You know, I steps up to play first. Hey, we'll prostitute anybody that donates to the show. So what got you into H two life? All right? So yeah, I got sidetrack. Sorry there. I'm a rambler at times, but true life was birth out of a meeting, impromptu meeting that I had in two thousand and nine. So two thousand and eight the market crashed around me. I am a real estate developer. I am a general contractor by trade for the last thirty eight and a half years. So it's basically all I know and all I do. And I fortunately got to work with Trent hand in hand on a lot of engineering work over that course a period of time so I've known this dude for a very long time. And so anyway, I was at an indoor soccer game and an old friend of mine, his name was Vernon Brewer, came up to said what's up, Kevin, And I said, dude, you know, the market crashed, and so what we had to do is we turned all of our sales in rentals, you know, so we could tread water and survive. Yep, And so that's what we did. You know. So in eight nine and early ten, you know, we just converted over and went from a construction company to a management company. And he goes, well, what have you been doing with your spare time? And I said, well, I've been spending a lot of time with my daughter. You know, my youngest daughter was in college and she was majoring in graphic design monitoring photography, and so I started taking photography classes with her at nights. And so I said, hey, dude, I'm taking photography classes. He goes, you're doing what? Yeah, you know, at forty something, I'm taking photography classes. And but I just want to spend some time my daughter. Sure. Yeah, he goes, you're not going to believe this, but you know, I just lost my backup photographer for a trip that I'm taking day after tomorrow, and do you want to go? And I said, well, I called him VB at the time. I said where are we going? He goes, we went to Haiti. I'm like, who wha wha wait wait wait wait wait stop wait wait wait if they had an earthquake there like day before yesterday and the magnitude was a record, I forget what was nine or whatever it was. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know in quas burnings in missions at World Help. And so I said, dude, I ask my wife, and so of course for me, and vernisaid, she's sitting right there, go ask her. And so I went over and ask asked her, and I said, hey, he wants me to go to Haiti day after tomorrow. So I'll give you the abridged version. Fast forward. I found myself standing in downtown Porterbrinch Porter Prince, Haiti, five days after the earthquake hit. Wow, And there's there's a thirty minute story that I could tell on how we got from Lynchburg to Haiti because Porter Prince was shot down, so we had to go to Dr Flino Santamingo whole another story. And then we had to have translators because you know, we only speak English, and in English to Spanish and Spanish to Creole, and so we had to have conversations that way. And so basically I would ask a question in English, it would go to a Spanish guy, which went to a Creole guy, came back from the Creole guy to the Spanish guy, to the to the English and then heck, by the time I got the answer, I forgot what to ask him. Yeah, I mean, so it was crazy. But so anyway, from that trip, I was impacted, like, oh my gosh, you know, these people in this third world country, which Haiti is. I mean, there's there's tons, tons of poor countries out there, and poor people out there and people in need. But man, at this moment in time, I mean I can tell you stories, grew some stories of stuff that we got to see over the two and a half days that we were there that just absolutely impacted me, you know, And I just I got in the van after all that was over with coming home and said, Lord, what in the world can I do. I mean, I'm a general contractor, I'm a land developer, I live in Lynchburg. I don't live in La or New York or these big cities with a whole lot of big connections. And I said, I don't know what to do, but but but use me, you know, send me. So be careful when you say that. Yeah, I've been there. Yeah, be careful when you say that. So I did say that, and over the course of the next three months, that short period of time, he let me realize that I have a connection group, you know, being in the construction business and being in the development business for all those years, just like you, I had a network of people, you know that I could I could gravitate to and get their attention. And so I just had to figure out how to get their attention. Well that was one four letter word. Golf. Oh wow. So we started a golf tournament in twenty ten at Boonsboro Country Club, and so we got it all together and we were going to get it all fired up, and we're going to drill clean water wells in Haiti, in Guatemala and Africa and India all over the place. And so we had that tournament and go into great details with that as well, but I won't. But it was a huge success. And in that first golf tournament in twenty ten, we re raised sixty six thousand dollars. Wow. And so we had a live auction. Nobody ever done that for my buddy, you introduce Counts Auction Group. Bill Bryan was our auctioneer and so he did our auction force and it was absolutely amazing, incredible. So we started started from there and then we progressed into the next five years at Boonsboro, and then after that we progressed into our partnership with London Downs because of Bill, you know, because Bill Bryan's father in law, Ted Counts, owns Undon Downs. And so over the last sixteen and a half years we've had aged two life moving in that direction and we've had an amazing opportunity for impact around the world. Wow. That's incredible. So and I know you do the auction to do the fundraising, and that's one part of it. But you're one of those guys that actually physically goes and does work and you bring people with you to help work. And so talk about that where you've gone. So you started at Haiti, I've known you to do Guatemala's Guatemala just the place that you go to now, how did you get into Guatemala. So I met a guy by the named of Carlos Fargus who owns and operates and is the founder of Hope of Life International. And it's in a remote area of Rio Hondo, Guatemala. And for those of you that want to google that, it won't show up. So look for Zacappa. So Zacappa is the closest near city nearby Rio Hondo. And so we made that connection with him in twenty ten and then along with that a lot of other connections around the world. But Guatemala is a very good safe place. I know that there are three out of four are on the do not travel to lists, but that's just in the city. But it's a really good place to get in and out of. So if you want to take a short term missions group, I mean, if I'm taking them to Ginger Africa, you know we're traveling for two days to spend three days on the ground, to travel two days home. It's a lot to ask for a lot of people. And the people in our groups are all business people. We don't have the typical I'm just going to say the word church. We don't have the typical church group. That travels with us. So Central America is a really good spot to get in and out of without being exhausted. I mean when I've traveled to Zimbabwe, I mean, it just it just kills you. I mean when you get home, you're like, it's like three days of recovery until you can really function properly because there's a twelve hour time check, so you got more time to actually do work too, right, I mean exactly, So I can leave her on Oak Virginia at six am and at twelve forty seven in the afternoon in Guatemala, I'm in country. Wow. Yeah, yeah, So I am there in half a day and then you know, a two and a half hour bus ride to the ministry and we're all checking in to our accommodations and you're having a team meeting and having dinner together. And the next morning at seven am, we're up and at it and after it. So you've helped develop that and build that and as after you go. Are there other groups that come in and also work or. There's constant groups, constant groups that come in and out. Our group is unique because we're want of one business minded. You know, people that come most groups are church groups. Nothing wrong with that obviously, but most church groups come down and then whatever need there is for hope of life in Guatemala, they'll jump in and you know, roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty and meet that need with us. We started out as clean water wells. That's why we call it H two a light. So yeah, for the first ten years, all we did was wells, and we did those wells all over the world. So if you can provide the basic need of life to somebody, just think about I mean, you know, I don't know where the camera is, but you know, here's a bottle that Emma gave me of the sagny clean water. In most of the world, they don't have that opportunity. Whether it's in plastic or it's coming out of a spickott, most of them are drinking dirty water. So the cycle begins very early in life for malnutrition. And so if you have malnutrition, you do not have an opportunity to be sustainable or to support yourself. So we started out this whole gig, this whole ministry, digging clean water wells, because if you give them clean water, all of a sudden, other nut's sick. They're not mountaineerers. They don't feel like crap in the morning when they get up. They can actually go out and then work and provide for their families. So by meeting that basic need, change the cycle of poverty in their lives. And we got to see that change firsthand in the first five years because we go back to the same villages, you know, we go to all the new villages we put in wells, and then occasionally we go back to a village that had water and it was growing. So you're physically drilling the whales or not me physically. Okay, all right, all right, Brian, let's not get carried away. I love a shovel, but I love to tell people how to use it. That's where I'm yeah, yeah, but when it's available. We have drilling rigs and machines in countries okay where we can drill wells, but a lot of remote areas, like even in Guatemala, they don't have the capability of either getting a drilling rig or having the funds to do that, although we raise the funds for the wells to put them in. So a lot of these wells are hand dug oh wow. Yeah. So but fortunately in Guatemala, the water table is very shallowa, so typically from sixty to ninety feet. You might not think that's very shallow, but you take your to Ginger Africa or Uganda, where it's twelve to fifteen hundred feet. Oh gosh, yeah, that's a whole lot different story. So what they'll do is they'll start digging this well by hand. The size of this table wow at the top, and they'll stare step it down until they hit water. And then when they hit water, they'll start sleeving it. And it's the old school police system. You remember the masonry wheel where people would pull the bricks up. That's what they use. So these things are are thirty six inches in diameter and one foot thick concrete liners, and they'll pull them in one at a time and they'll stack and grout stack and grout stack and grout stack and ground all the way to the top of the well. And on top of it, put a concrete lid looks looks like the top of a well here. And then if they have access to electricity, you know, we'll put electrical pump, drop it down in there, flip a breaker and water comes out into a sink. Fat with a little metal roof over top of it. Everybody from the village comes to that area to get clean water. If they don't have access to electricity, a lot of times we'll give them generator because they have access to fuel. Now, if you're going to the uttermost parts of the Earth and you're in Africa and they have neither, if we have the money, we'll put in a solar panel. So basically what it is putting in three sections of scaffold bucks like brick bucks, and then we'll put a solar panel on top of it, charges a battery. What we'll feed the pump to pull the water up. In the super remote areas, okay, super remote, they have a handpump. So basically, if you've got a thousand foot well, you got this really long leverage arm and they put the kids to work. So when they need water, the kids will start pumping. And it's kind of like a sea salt, and so the kids will pump and they'll take turns, and it literally takes twenty to forty minutes to get the first drop of water out of the well because you're priming that pump the whole way up. Think about it all the way up and so when you start getting water, you don't want to stop. And so they have these jerry cans, it's like fuel cans, and they fill these jerry cans up with clean water, and so they'll pump for hours and hours and hours. But dude, there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids in these villages. So they'll all come to the well and get things going in the morning and they'll pump for three or four hours at a time, you know, to get all their cans filled up so it can take them to their houses and whatnot. And so that's how that happens. You start from there. But just recently, I remember some of the videos that Jill put up y'all have done, like dermatology centers, Like it's evolved, right, So from where you've started fifteen years ago, there's now buildings that you helped build for the communities, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we started out h two of Life, that's her name, that's her brand. But you know, being project oriented, I mean you're going to build something. I love to build stuff, love building stuff. So our group, I don't say we got bored because we do wells every year. That's our basis will always stay at our basis, but we'd span it into development. And so over the last ten years we have had the opportunity to build a lot of projects in a lot of different countries, like, for instance, in Ginger Africa, we went down and COVID was two thousand and twenty February, right, We were there in January of twenty twenty and we built a church and we built a well there and so fortunately we got back in time just to hit COVID and that's what started the whole project oriented arm if I could say, of age two a life. And since then we've had the opportunity to build a vocational school. Oh wow, nine thousand square foot, Holy good. And so what's really cool about that is our team, as you alluded to, our team goes every second week of February every year somewhere and they paid a go and they donate their time and their talent to work on that project. And we did that. Vocational school was a two year project. We did the first phase of four thousand square foot one year and came back and did the five thousand square foot edition the next year. And he was so fricking hot. And this was in Scappa, Guatemala. That my buddy Mark Burrew was on the roof with me and like, dude, you need to get off the roof. And Ben, who you interviewed a while back then Wallas was with us, and it was so hot on that roof as we were putting that sheet metal on that I I I mean, they're like, I'm not gonna put on the roof. I'm gonna be with you. So like I'm on the roof crew two. So it was so hot that that Mark passed out. Thank god. We had Dr Craig Peatree with us, so he came down packed him and eye. He gave him some fluids, you know, right on site. He was okay, and I'm like, guys, I'm not feeling good. And I was still young, and you know, it felt like I could tackle the world. And I said, let's let's get off the roof for a little bit. So I came down off the roof and I took my shoes off, and I had blisters on my feet. So I had my sneakers on and my socks on, and then the heat had transferred through my shoes through my socks and put blisters on my feet. It was so hot. So that's how dedicated the team is. So we had the opportunity to put that vocational school together, and that vocational school to this day, kids are going through that school and there's a sawmal on the far end and there's a paint shop on the other end. You can take a piece of raw wood, goes through the shop, comes out with a piece of furniture and the kids get to learn that trade every single freaking day and if they kill. If you don't think about the impact of something, you know, you just think, oh, I'm nice, he built a little vocation school. But you don't you don't realize what it does to that whole country. I mean, so how I'm curious after you did your very first one because I mean, for me, I mean, the farthest I've been is Cabo, Mexico. I mean, I have a good place to go, but I mean I'm just sitting here thinking, like I'm in church, which I hear people they come back, they tell the mission stories and you said, you know the Lord, you know, you said, use me right. Yeah, I've had those conversations, but I've never acted on it, just being honest. So when you saw the impact did it change your life in any way of totally? It changed my mindset about everything that I do, everything that I look at, everything, every business venture that I do, every I'm going to use word leverage every relationship that I come into. I mean, I am always thinking about how can I leverage this relationship sure to impact the world, to impact h two a life? How can this person join this group, you know, find out where God is working and join them. And so that's what I do with every relationship that ever come to. And it happened with me and you with your condo. You can tell them my story. Yeah. Yeah, So we donated a week to his kindo just to contribute to the to the effort. Yeah. So Star Evans and Wayne Wayne, they're going, I think it's next week. They go, yeah, yeah, they got a good week. They got a warm week. Sorry. That is awesome. That is also terrific. Yeah yeah, because like I said, I hear church groups and they talk about the missions and stuff, and man, I just can't see myself in doing something like. Oh I can see you doing it, but right here. Let's go And and just I've always wondered, well, you know the impact that it has on you like, and that's it's refreshing to know because you just you take live stream. We do all this stuff and you're sitting here talking about just giving water to a community. How impactful that is? Kevin? How And these are exactly the stories I hoped for. I mean, we had the veterans last year and their American heroes, and you're in American hero You actually helped the world grow, right, You've created something and always I'm amazed. It's just our little town of Lynchburg. How people do this stuff. It's just amazing. So for us, we're a conduit to the globe. I mean, we have a lot of people that listen. How can they donate? How can they serve their time or their money? How would they be able to donate to what you do? Well? I mean, if you're interested in H two A life is h twoodashlife dot org. Okay, And so it's a very old website. We're working on it right now. I'm not a technically individual. Media Squatch is a wonderful. Yeah, let's go, I need your help. But anyway, it's basically just gives you a little bit of intel and it's old about what we do and who we are and has a donation page on the back end. We're a very unique ministry and I gotta tread really lightly on this. Our board underwrites our ministry. So there's no administrative cost. Nice, there's no overhead, there's no salaries, there's no anything. Yeah. So when you gave me your condo and it raised xout, okay, yeah, I'll surprise that X goes directly into the field in those in need. I don't think people realize what you just said. I mean, I've been around a lot of nonprofit organizations and organizations that do good, but my biggest scripes that I've had with those organizations is they have CEOs, they have boards, and I'm telling you a large part of their donation goes to these CEOs. Yeah, and when you say that, it's just it's refreshing to know that you're directly impacting with every dollar you can. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So I am the founder, So you could call me CEO, CFO, s at whatever, but I am just I'm the founder of Aged to a Life. And then I take zero salary for what I do, and then I again leverage my relationships with all of the people that I come in contact with to either get auction items or get a discount on the golf course, or get a discount on the catering for the food. And our golfers that come to our event, which is the first Tuesday in October every single year at London Down's First Tuesday at noon, make it real easy when everybody first Tuesday at noon, and our golfers that pay to play golf that day, they underwrite the entire event that day and they know it. So all of their fees pays for their golf, their lunch, their dinner, the whole nine yards and then all of our auction items like what Trent gave us or donated. So when you have a live auction, it's one hundred percent out. Wow, very terrific. What's the future look like for eachd your life? What are you all doing? What's your next things? All? Right? So I had this really incredible week. Just last week. I went back to Guatemala. We take our February trip with the group and we had fifty business people and kids go with us, largest group ever this February. And so a follow up group to that, I connected with Thomas Roe Baptist Church and talked in Pastor Stephen Thomas, who does the young adults, and he says, hey, I want to take twenty kids, but I need you to come, Like okay, use me again, use me again, Like I was just there two weeks ago. Bro. So anyway, all good. Got to go and got to see those kids serve and get plugged in and it was just incredible. And I made these amazing connections with these two doctors. One was Freddy from l Salvador and one was doctor Bob from Lakeland, Florida. And I met him in this very unique way. They were standing on the side of the road and I was in a four wheeler and that's coming down the hill and I say, you guys, you need a taxi. He goes, no, no, no, no, I'm looking for my drone and you know, fast forward and I was like, you know what, I got shorts on the heel, the incline on like this, what do you call this? This grade of slope trentanous. Yeah, so it's like you sit down and traverse down the slope with thorns and whatever. And so anyway, for the next hour I helped him find his drone and we made this connection in that hour being in the woods, and he goes like, Dude, I've never been to Guatemala before, and I'm fired up. Most of the time. He goes to Jamaica and El Salvador, and I want you to just set in on a level one surgery this afternoon. I don't know if I can say this in the United States, but it is in Guatemala. So I got to scrubby in that afternoon and then watch him remove a lymphoma and I got to repeat that process the next day and he did three and so we just made this great connection. And I said, dude, where do we go need to go next? Because last year we did a women's clinic and oncology center in the hospital there in Rio Hondo at Hope of Life International the previous year. We need a dermatology center with doctor ry Bornstead of Seven Hills Dermatology right here in Lynchburg, Virginia. There wh in Bedford, which is amazing. They see an average of fifty patients a day. Talking my sustainability and H two A Life built that facility. H two Life built the oncology center along with Thomas Road. H to A Life built the women's clinic, and so meeting the doctor was an answer to prayer because I'm no medical guy, you know, you know, give me set of drawings and I'll go vertical in anything you want to. But you know, I don't have any ideas of what we need. And so doctor Bob he told me, he said, dude, you need a radiology lab and a blood lab. You need to be able to screen these patience when they come in because you're sending everything out and it's taking a freaking week to come back and by the time you know they're back home, we had to sew them back up. And so our goal for the next year twenty twenty seven is is we're going to put in a radiology center and a lab in the hospital where we already have an emergency room, a dental clinic, an oncology center, and a women's center. Wow, it's already there. Now we're going to put the We're going to pull the pieces together because of that connection that I got to make with doctor Bob looking for a freaking drone on this crazy slope where I was getting torel on piece. But that is who you are, man, You're an amazing guy. Yeah, that's incredibly cool. So I mean it was an answered prayer, you know, to run into him on the side of the road. Yeah, I mean literally, I mean I had no idea that was going to happen me. The engineer would have just kept driving like I didn't see him. Yeah. Oh man, that's amazing. That's good stuff. Well, thank you for coming in and Sharon. Uh, it's been a blessing to hear it, and I'm sure those people listening are as amazed as I am. But before we let you get out of here, we always ask our guests a special question. Yeah, if you could choose one person, any person ever in history or current that you could just hang out with for one day and just chill, who would it be with and where would you Where would you hang out? Oh my gosh, I mean I've gotten to hang out with this person an incredible amount of time in my life, but he has passed since. And it would be doctor Jerry Folwell. Oh so uh, first time we've had Yeah. I had the fortunate to meet Jonathan Fallwell junior, not junior, Jonathan Follwell uh in nineteen eighty at Treasure Allen. Yeah, and we hit it off and so we became friends, and that's when I switched over from public school to back then Lynchburg Christian Academy now Liberty Christmas Academy, and so got to know him. We became really good buddies. And then obviously I got to connect with his dad, and then we got to spend a lot of time at his house on Piedmont, got to know Masel his mom very well, and just to see that man's worth, work, ethic and drive to reach the world for Christ. I mean he was driven. I mean this guy could operate on no sleep. He literally sleeped in cars and on airplanes and then two or three hours at night. So if I got the opportunity to go back and reconversate with somebody who was sitting right here, it would be Jerry Folwell, because he was such a huge influence on me. I mean, he took a vested interest in me at age fifteen, you know, as he did so many other people. I mean, my wife's got the story that she lived on Toledo Avenue and then he knocked on her door, you know, in the late sixties early seventies and invited her to come to church and their whole family and he said, you know what, even if you don't come, I'm sending the bus. And so on Wednesday nights, the bus would pick her up in front of her house and take her to Wannas. Every freaking week she was the only one out of the house. I would go, she's got this crazy story. So he impacted me so much and instilled me on me so much over the years that I got to know him, that I got to know his family, that I got to connect with his son, Jonathan, who is one of my best friends today. That you know. He had this phrase called b hag big Harry audacious goal and that never left my mind, like no goal is too big for God, zero goal is too big for God. Nothing of great importance is accomplished apart from prayer. With prayer and God, you can do anything. You can move mountains and you can change the world. Wow. Thank you again, Kevin Foster with H two O Life. Thank you for being on the program. Thank you so much. Appreciate you guys. Awesome stuff man. Thank you