Herb Frazier remembers a time when he did not know the Salvation Army is a church. He thought of it as purely a social service organization with people ringing bells over a donation pot at Christmas and operating thrift shops year-round to fund its programs for the needy.

His favorite Bible verse, Jeremiah 29:11 — “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” — illustrates his path since.

He and his wife, JoAnn, both Salvation Army lieutenants, are the newest pastors and administrators of Vicksburg’s Salvation Army center. They say others need to know more about the ministry.

“We want people to know it’s a church,” Frazier said recently from his office at the Mission 66 complex that includes a chapel, support service offices and a thrift shop. “All over the world people know that, but not here.”

Frazier was raised in a charismatic Pentecostal church, but felt God leading him into the Salvation Army shortly after his parents decided to enter the officers’ training school in 2001.

At the time he had other plans for his life, but finally threw up his hands and submitted, he said, laughing.

In the Salvation Army, husbands and wives go into ministry together; both must be officers. While singles can become officers, the demands of the job make it difficult, with daily administration and pastoral duties along with rescue and disaster relief calls at all hours of the day or night. “It really takes a partner,” Frazier said.

The Fraziers completed their officer training, were commissioned and ordained in June and assigned to the River City.

They have a 4-year-old daughter, Kiara. So, in addition to their ministry, family time is important. They set aside time to spend with her and sometimes take her on mission work in the community. “We want her to love the Army,” JoAnn Frazier said.

The couple came to the church of the Salvation Army from very different spiritual backgrounds — different from each other’s as well as different from the Army’s.

JoAnn, raised Roman Catholic, was about 15 when a cousin invited her to a Salvation Army church. She loved the emphasis on having a relationship with God. “The first time I went, I knew that was the church for me,” she said.

“One thing I saw with this ministry was that it was not just about Bible study and going to church, but taking the church outside these four walls and meeting the needs of people,” Herb Frazier said. “I saw the missions opportunities we could have. I was so attracted to it because it was about more than going to church.”

The couple met and fell in love in Texas, in the border town of McAllen. Herb, the son of a Marine Corps officer, had lived all over the country, with his teen years spent in Albany, Ga. When his parents decided to become Salvation Army officers — which meant giving up the family’s home and literally moving into the School for Officers Training in Atlanta — Herb, then 20, went to live with his grandmother in McAllen.

JoAnn, raised in Texas, came through McAllen with a Salvation Army Summer Service Team on its way to missions work in Mexico. The team stayed with the McAllen church, helping with vacation Bible school activities and local flood-relief efforts. On their forays into Mexico, Herb was enlisted to help provide security for the almost-entirely female team.

While JoAnn had planned to go into officers’ training as a single, the two decided to marry. After Kiara’s birth, they went into training together, a two-year program.

Both are thrilled to be in Vicksburg and are enjoying their first assignment.

“I like meeting the needs of the people,” JoAnn said, “but I really, really love being a pastor, and having relationships with people. Greeting them in the lobby, or talking with them during the diner times, meeting people — it’s all about the relationships.”

“What I like is that no day is ever the same,” said Herb. “I’m always learning.”

The most difficult — but also the most spiritually sustaining — is the daily and constant trust in God that they are called to exercise. “The hardest thing about this job is that everyone who comes through this door expects their needs to be met,” Herb said. “And as much as we want to help folks, everyone’s needs can’t be met.”

Whether because the local office just doesn’t have the funds or the person in need doesn’t qualify, the Fraziers say it’s tough to turn a person away, and sometimes the news is not taken graciously.

“We have to believe that maybe I am not able to help you, but still I can pray,” Herb said. “We have to have faith that your need is going to be met, maybe by another person or in some other way.”

He said he also has to remind himself that the work is God’s, and to rely on God to provide.

“I think I find for myself, as a pastor, as an officer and as a Christian, that I need to trust God, surrender it all,” JoAnn said.

The Fraziers stress that with people struggling financially and Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching, the center needs donations.

“To do what we need to do, we need help,” Herb said. The Salvation Army accepts any donation, including rags, which can be compacted into bales and sold. Furniture, clothing, what’s left after yard sales — it all helps, he said.

“And if you’re looking for a church home we’d love to have you,” he said. “Church is at 11 a.m. every Sunday.”

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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com