Ayiesha Woods: Reaching Out, Reaching In
Ayiesha with Maria in Guatemala (July 2009 mission trip)
By Melissa Riddle, senior content strategist, GospelMusicChannel.com
GRAMMY-nominated Ayiesha Woods is a young woman who writes and sings about real life. Having moved around a lot as a kid, living in New York, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Texas and Bermuda, she’s experienced a world in need of more than what money can buy. And in that need, she says, we all share common ground.
“No matter who we are or what status or background or where we come from, we all are in need of a Savior,” says Woods. “We all share the same struggles and can rejoice with the same victories.”
The transparency and honesty of Ayiesha’s music draws audiences wherever she goes, but the impact of her musical career still isn’t enough to satisfy the 29-year-old singer/songwriter. She wants her life to be ‘faith in action.’
“One thing I’ve always been able to recognize in my relationship with God is [it] is reflected in the relationships I have with others,” Woods says. “If my relationship with God is not where it needs to be, it’s reflected in every other relationship. I need to keep that line of communication where it needs to be.”
And reaching out to others is what relationship is all about. That’s why Ayiesha is passionate about her work with World Vision, an international Christian humanitarian organization that works in nearly 100 countries, combating poverty and providing disaster relief.
“It was important for me to get involved because I believe in serving, and doing what is in my power as a believer to show and spread the love of Jesus everywhere. World Vision is an organization that does just that, and I'm happy to be able to partner with them and use my voice to evoke change.”
As an artist representative, Ayiesha shares the mission of World Vision with her audiences all over the country and beyond, inspiring others to sponsor impoverished children around the world. “It’s in ‘love like this,’” she says in reference to the title of her second studio album, “that we can truly change the world, one child at a time.”
In July, Ayiesha traveled to Guatemala to see firsthand the work of World Vision. There she met Maria, a sponsored child.
“Her family was one of the first families in that country to be sponsored,” Ayiesha says. “She showed me how she makes tortillas for her family and shared with me how grateful she is for the sponsorship. She told us that she’d do her absolute best in life so that her sponsors will see how much of a difference they're making (and have made) in her life. There wasn't a dry eye in that little house!"
Such real-life experiences, half a world a way, can’t help but change the way we live and how we appreciate and value the blessings we’ve been given, but for Ayiesha, it goes even deeper.
“My experience with reaching out to others and living compassionately has impacted my life in many ways. It has truly given me a sense of worth and purpose. It gives me things to write and sing about! Not because I've heard about it; but because I experience it; I live it. And to be able to do so for Christ is one of the most rewarding things of my life.”
Ayiesha’s first-ever Christmas release, Christmas Like This, is available November 11. Look for her on Natalie Grant’s “Believe” Tour in December.
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