SAN CARLOS, Ariz. -- Using a stroller as a walker, Freda Hinton emerges first from the doorless doorway of a one-room plywood structure.
The 75-year-old is too hard of hearing to respond to greetings from Dale Whinery, who flew in from Tustin, Calif., on a mission that morning. So she raises a leathered hand and offers a hint of a gap-toothed grin.
There's no smile on Carol Hinton's face. Rubbing weary eyes, she ambles into the sunlight to meet this stranger who's near her mom's age but so far from her world.
Carol Hinton, 38, recently managed to get clean, distancing herself from the methamphetamine and alcohol addictions that plague her San Carlos Apache tribe. The reservation in eastern Arizona is among the poorest in the nation, with staggering unemployment and 55 percent of the population living in poverty.
The Hintons' home burned down nearly a year ago. The charred remains are still steps from their temporary abode, along with a sprawling mound of empty food cans, scorched furniture and broken toys. Carol Hinton is vague about what happened, saying only that her brother, who now sleeps in a nearby tent, started a fire that got out of control.
"We've got no place to go," she shrugs as she picks up 2-year-old Lettie, the youngest of her six children.
After all, her family has lived on this plot of desert along the railroad tracks since the federal government drove her tribe there nearly a century and a half ago.
Hearing this tale that's become all too familiar, Whinery lays one hand on Lettie's back and the other on Hinton's arm below her "Apache" tattoo. He bows his head, lifting this broken family up in prayer.
Though Whinery just met the Hintons, he has unknowingly been helping them for years.
If it weren't for Whinery, the six Hinton children and hundreds more on the Apache reservation likely wouldn't have had any toys last Christmas. They would have gone to bed hungry a few more times, and they would have shivered through more winter nights.
On this visit, he fills Grandma Hinton's stroller-turned-walker with donated jeans, T-shirts and shoes. He also jots down notes on a crumpled receipt, making plans for his next mission to what he calls "America's forgotten people."
They're known as The Lost Bean Bunch.
Every day at 6 a.m., Whinery and three of his buddies open The Lost Bean in North Tustin. Linked by their faith and zeal for service, the men drink coffee, read the Bible and swap stories -- "Some are even true," Whinery quips.
Here's a true story that's hard to believe: Whinery started flying planes at 14.
"I soloed on my 16th birthday, and I've been at it ever since," he said.
He was a corporate pilot for a while, transporting supplies for a lumber yard. He also has pastored a church. But his heart always has been with missions.
Whinery flew to 17 countries in the 1960s and '70s with Missionary Aviation Fellowship. He'd stay three to six months at a time, eating monkey meat and sleeping in a hammock, planting churches and building schools.
Through that work, Whinery met pilots who wanted to use their passion to help but couldn't commit to going overseas. So Whinery and his wife founded Wings of Faith in Tustin nearly 40 years ago to let volunteer aviators do what they loved while serving missionaries close to home.
The group occasionally takes supplies to the homeless or migrant farm workers. But the focus always has been on helping American Indians, flying supplies to remote reservations -- some that otherwise rarely interact with the outside world.
"They're a very proud people," Whinery said. "It took a lot of years for them to be able to accept what we're doing."
Today, the organization serves 39 tribes in five states across the Southwest, with more calls for help than they can fill.
Leaving from Corona Airport, volunteer pilots run one or two missions a week. They also deliver toys each Christmas and backpacks stuffed with school supplies each fall, plus take on projects like building a well for a children's home. And grounded volunteers sort donations, service planes and schedule drops.
"It's a very expensive organization to operate, but it's very productive," Whinery said. "God has really kept it going for all these years."
It takes help from companies such as Stussy, Vans and OBEY, which regularly donate clothing and shoes. Gleanings for the Hungry gives thousands of pounds of dried soup and fruit each year, and Tustin Nissan, Costco, The Home Depot and Walgreens are also sponsors.
"We would never be able to raise the funds to buy all of this," organization President Tom Leedom said, pointing out goods ready to be shipped from the Corona warehouse.
Wings of Faith owns two Cessnas and shares a Kodiak. Many of the organization's 21 volunteer pilots also use their own planes, with Wings of Faith helping cover fuel and maintenance.
One of those pilots is Humberto Acosta, who flies jets for Toyota.
About 10 years ago, Acosta had his plane at Corona Airport and was feeling guilty over his expensive toy. Then he stumbled on the Wings of Faith hangar, and Whinery's vision gave him and his plane a purpose.
As the sun rose over Corona Airport on a recent morning, Acosta took the co-pilot's seat of a 1978 Cessna 206 alongside his mentor. Whinery hadn't visited the San Carlos Apache since the 1980s. But on this Thursday, the 79-year-old pilot plotted his route 420 miles east, to a landing strip on the edge of the 1.8 million-acre reservation.
The first thing visitors see as they land in San Carlos is the Apache Gold Casino -- a right granted to American Indians that has become a blessing and a curse.
"There's this misconception in the United States that they have the casinos, they'll be fine," Acosta said.
But statistics show casinos do little to boost the quality of life for most American Indians. Remote ones often don't generate enough revenue to make a difference, and others struggle to use funds in meaningful ways. Then there's the spike in substance abuse and health issues that plagues casino communities.
In San Carlos, casino revenue helps fund police, ambulance and other services for the tribe's 15,000 members. But there are clearly many needs that aren't being met, leaving tribal members such as Carla Kinney to fill the gaps.
Using donations from groups like Wings of Faith, Kinney and her family pass out free food every Tuesday and Thursday from the dirt parking lot of their church, which is always unlocked.
"People used to break in," Kinney, 48, says. "But ever since we started feeding and giving, they don't do that anymore."
At the sight of Kinney's tan minivan, the needy appear from overcrowded homes and overgrown alleyways. In the rough La Bamba neighborhood, a man in a black "Apache Pride" shirt asked for a ride to a nearby clinic -- she suspected to get medicine to help him down from a high.
"These are people other people will not stop for," Kinney said. "But these are my people."
Four days a week, Kinney's 26-year-old daughter, Nia Armenta, and her husband drive a school bus that has been converted to a mobile Sunday School classroom. They honk as they roll into each neighborhood, with kids running to memorize verses from donated Bibles, do crafts with donated supplies and enjoy donated snacks.
"With Wings of Faith, it's not just about the little material things," Kinney said. "They help us to encourage our people so we can make better lives for ourselves."
Though these missions take a toll, the Wings of Faith pilots are known for their good nature.
As Acosta and Whinery point their Cessna back to Corona, they keep up a steady stream of banter between calls to flight towers.
Whinery glances at the iPad that Acosta is using for navigation.
"We used to fly by the seat of our pants," Whinery says.
"That explains a lot," Acosta jokes back.
After nearly four decades at the helm of Wings of Faith, Whinery recently passed the presidency to Leedom, a 10-year volunteer and another member of The Lost Bean Bunch.
There will be no retirement for Whinery, though. He plans to keep healthy so he can renew his pilot's license past his 80th birthday. Relinquishing his management position will simply free him up to follow his heart back into the mission field.
He says, "I'm having fun serving the Lord."
Religion on 05/16/2015