Neither rain, nor sleet nor snow kept Donna Hopkins from driving from Wendell to Winterville on Friday to have coffee with a friend.

More than 1,000 women joined her at the Fresh Grounded Faith women’s conference at Covenant United Methodist Church. Saturday’s event, featuring Christian author, speaker and singer Jennifer Rothschild, had to be canceled due to hazardous driving conditions.

Despite Friday’s forecast, women from across eastern North Carolina turned out for the event, which also featured author and actress Lisa Whelchel and Christian recording artist Shelley Jennings. Former “Biggest Loser” contestant Abby Rike made a surprise appearance, drawing a standing ovation for her inspirational weight loss.

But it was another story of loss that drew most women to the conference. As a teenager, Rothschild lost her sight and, with it, her dream of becoming a commercial artist.

“Who I am and what I do are not the same thing,” Rothschild said. “I can never base my sense of esteem on what I can do and what I cannot do.”

Hopkins knows that first-hand. She was a nursing student when she began losing her vision. Complications from Lasik eye surgery nearly caused her to lose her left eye. Though doctors were able to save it, the 50-year-old Wake County native began quickly losing vision in both eyes.

Still able to read with thick prescription glasses, she began browsing titles at a Christian bookstore for inspiration. That’s when she came across Rothschild’s “Lessons I Learned in the Dark.”

“I pulled it (the book) off the shelf,” Hopkins recalled. “I really hadn’t heard of her. I just became fascinated with how she took going blind and used that as the Lord’s work in her to not take it as a bad thing but to make more of a positive impact for other people.”

Hopkins, who also shares Rothschild’s love of singing, sent an e-mail message to Rothschild’s ministry, sharing her concerns about her vision loss. To her surprise, she received a personal reply signed by Rothschild and her husband, Phil.

“She e-mailed me back the sweetest e-mail,” Hopkins said. “She was telling me not to give up, that she was praying for me. She understood where I was coming from.”

Fresh Grounded Faith Conference Director Theresa Wiggins said that while Rothschild cannot make individual replies to the thousands of women who take an interest in her ministry — her monthly newsletter “Java with Jennifer” has nearly 20,000 subscribers — she does want her outreach to be personal.

“She wants that connection with them,” Wiggins said, “so that they experience an intimate relationship with their God.

“We want every woman to feel like she’s sitting in a coffee shop with her best friend and listening to an inspirational story and a Bible message.”

Women attending Friday’s session heard inspirational stories from three women. Rothschild, Whelchel and Rike told how faith helped them overcome fear and loss.

Whelchel, famous for portraying Blair Warner on television’s “The Facts of Life” in the late 1970s and early 1980s, told of moving to Hollywood, essentially alone, at age 12.

“I learned how to cut off that need for connection with someone bigger than me to love me and take care of me,” she said, “And I thought, ‘I will just take care of myself.’”

While trying to simultaneously navigate adolescence and manage her own career, Whelchel also engaged in a very public battle with her weight. Television executives who threatened to fire the young actress for gaining weight forced her to step on the scales when she came to the set.

Rike also battled weight in front of the camera. The teacher from Texas was a contestant on season eight of “The Biggest Loser.”

Rike auditioned for the NBC show after losing her husband, her infant son and 5-year-old daughter in a car accident. She turned to food as her “drug of choice” and ended up weighing 247 pounds.

“The weight loss was so secondary,” Rike said. “When I went (on the show), I thought, ‘I’m desperate enough to do whatever it takes to feel better’ because ... I was just existing. I had to strengthen myself so I could serve again.”

Rike, who was making her first appearance Friday on the Fresh Grounded Faith tour, said she is humbled to be able to share her Christian testimony.

“It’s just a testament to he is all the things I know him to be,” Rike said. “I never dreamt three and a half years ago that I could be in this place. ... I have a real sense of joy. I didn’t think I’d ever feel that again.”

Rothschild challenged women to find joy in their Christian faith, regardless of their circumstances.

“Blindness for me is really tough,” she said. “But it’s also been an opportunity for me to really measure what peace is like, for me to really assess what true joy is.

“Sometimes when difficult things come into our lives, it gives us an opportunity.”

More information for ticket-holders from Saturday’s Fresh Grounded Faith event will be posted Tuesday at wwww.freshgroundedfaith.comunder the Greenville, N.C., link.

Contact Kim Grizzard at kgrizzard@reflector.com or (252) 329-9578.