Christian singer Patty Fischer spent most of her life performing until one day 14 years ago, when her voice quit.

Doctor after doctor named acid reflux as the cause but she didn’t feel they were correct.

It wasn’t until nine years later that she saw a specialist in Florida who pinpointed a voice disorder: spasmodic dysphonia.

Mrs Fischer was devastated.

“It’s what [novelist] CS Lewis calls a hard providence,” she said. “That’s when you look at something you’re going though and know it was obviously from God.

“That was an extremely painful time for me. I get teary just thinking about it because singing was my life, my greatest joy. But it’s something I’ve had to give over to God and just know, in spite of it all, He has a plan and a purpose for my life.”

Mrs Fischer started singing as a child in Upper Peninsula, Michigan — in church, on Christian radio and in high school.

She travelled the world for 15 years with faith-based Heart and Home Ministries. By then she’d married Bob Fischer, who is today the senior pastor at Evangelical Church of Bermuda. Together, they have four children.

The problems with her voice started in 2001.

“At first I noticed I just couldn’t hit the notes and struggled to figure out what’s going on here,” she said. “I took a rest for a month. I didn’t sing anything and just rested. Then when I tried singing again it had become worse, not better. It affected my speaking as well and I had to be really selective about when using my voice.”

Although traumatic, the experience improved her relationship with God, she said.

“He has taught me so much through it, like patience and trust. My walk with God has been increased amazingly by it because you can’t be in this relationship just for the goodies or things God has gifted to you. You have to be in it for your journey and He chooses the ways and times by which you bring glory to Him.”

God has since helped her to discover talents she didn’t know she had.

The 60-year-old is the author of Pathways of the Heart, a devotional book filled with poetry, and a children’s book, Sam, the Snowshoe Rabbit.

She and her husband moved here two years ago. She will give a rare speaking appearance at a ladies’ Christmas tea organised by Evangelical Church.

“My message is called The Most Extraordinary Gift and it’s about how sometimes gifts come in a different way than we expect,” she said. “It’s not what we thought we wanted, but those can sometimes be the best gifts of all. In regards to our spiritual walk that gift would be Jesus.”

A member of the church’s congregation started the event three years ago in an effort to reach out to women throughout the community.

“We have music, a speaker and entertainment and the hall is set up beautifully,” Mrs Fischer said. “All the ladies bring their own china sets from home and set the tables elaborately and it’s just gorgeous. Our Saturday event next week is filled up, but Friday night still has some openings.”

Mrs Fischer’s grandfather, John J Rader, founded the Gitche Gumee Bible Camp “with five dollars in his pocket” during the Great Depression in 1930.

She accepted Christ into her life at the tender age of six, but it wasn’t until her teen years she started to own her faith.

“When I was 14 we had a speaker at the camp that challenged us in our faith to make it real,” she said.

“I remember very distinctly that was the time that God said, ‘Are you really going to live your life for me?’. That was a huge decision for me, but I knew I had to make it for myself. I said ‘Lord, I’m yours for whatever you have for me’.”

She started performing with a folk group but later joined Word of Life, an international evangelistic Christian youth ministry, as a singer. She travelled to Canada, Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, performing with them. She also met her husband.

They ran Heart and Home Ministries together from 1983 to 1998. Their three eldest children regularly joined them on the road.

“Our home base was in Virginia,” Pastor Fischer said. “During the school term most of our travelling was on the East Coast, but in the summers we had a mobile home and got to travel for ten to 11 weeks straight. We would also travel overseas. We tried to take our children with us most of the time.”

Heart and Home’s goal was “to communicate Christ through song and worship”. In their heyday they performed at churches, Bible conferences and outdoor events — anywhere that would have them.

Pastor Fischer said: “It was wonderful to be able to do that together as a family.

“We did everything from the booking to finances to the driving and set-up. It was just us and our children and that was just such an amazing blessing for us. It was a time of stepping out in faith.

“You have to depend totally on God for finances. We didn’t charge anything for our performances so went off of a love offering. Whatever money came in we lived off of.

“My children will look back over that time and say that was the greatest walk of faith for them and I praise God for my journey because all my children are now working in ministry. I’m just so thankful for that. I think many of the life experiences me and Patty went through worked to strengthen our faith. We didn’t hide those hard times from our children.

“They prayed for us when we didn’t have money to buy groceries and when we did have anything they knew it was from God.”

• Saturday’s tea is sold out but women are welcome to join Mrs Fischer at the Evangelical Church in Paget next Friday from 7-9pm. Admission is $15.