About the Yowells

Tisha Marie Patterson was born in Spokane, Washington on February 6, 1986. She has always been a very strong-willed and spirited girl often known for her set of lungs as a toddler, and her affinity for crawling up and jumping off of furniture where by the age of five, she had two black eyes and had lost both her front teeth! She grew up with a love of shoes and music which she still carries today. She could often be seen around the age of four wearing mismatched dress shoes, one red and one black, insisting that they were both her favorite! She grew up in the city near the Spokane River where she did a lot of bike riding with her family, and swimming in their family pool. In school, she participated in softball, volleyball, and cheer-leading. She was also very active in choir.

She has a great passion for music and life, taking to music from a very young age. Her mother reported hearing her humming from her crib even as a baby and reaching above her head to play on her grandmother’s antique piano as soon as she could reach the keys. She was involved in choir from grade school through her senior year of high school, lettering twice in choir with frequent solos. She participated in yearly choir competitions and her senior year in the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Vancouver, BC, where her school, Mount Spokane High School, took the Sweepstakes Grand Prize that year. When she was very young, her father took her to a piano store and let her choose a piano to purchase so that she could begin piano lessons and learning the art of music. By the age of 12, she was composing her own written music, and plunking out popular radio songs by ear. Within two years, she made it to the top of her piano class graduating with honors.

Just before high school, her family bought a 20 acre ranch in the foothills of mount Spokane, where Tisha spent the rest of her growing up in the country. It was at this time she took to horseback riding and a love of the outdoors. Shortly after high school, she moved to Nopala, Hidalgo Mexico to soak up the love of culture and travel. After a short stay, she returned home, got a job, and put herself through 2 years of Tri County School of Discipleship, a local bible college. There she studied Bible history and Christian living.

In 2008, she began attending Living Church of God, where she was baptized in March of 2010. While still carrying a passion for life, Tisha currently enjoys hiking, photography, rock climbing, piano, poetry, symphony, singing and shopping. She also loves coffee, tea, people and culture, and aspires to continue traveling around the world, and enjoying the beauty of God’s creation. When she’s not at work, you can usually find her on the trails somewhere hiking with her camera in hand, or sitting in a theater somewhere enjoying the arts.

She would like to give thanks to God and her immediate family as well as her church family and her husband, Kevin Yowell for all of the love and light they have added to her life.

Kevin James Yowell was born in Rapidan, Virginia on July 12, 1984. Some would later say that he was born with a pencil in his hand, for at a very young age he took to scribbling on every scrap of paper around the house. His father would bring home giant sheets of blueprint paper from work, and Kevin would scribble his drawings all over them. By the time he started school in the Second Grade (he was home-schooled for the first two years), he had already earned a reputation as the “class artist”.

From that point on there was no stopping him, and, encouraged by his teachers and family, he continued to build upon his artistic talents. While the majority of the time Kevin could be found doodling or dreaming up some new video game, he still managed to keep his grades up in school, making the Superintendent’s Super-Star list several times, and consistently staying on the honor roll through his grade school years. While Kevin mostly preferred to stay indoors and draw even on perfectly sunny days, he did get to spend a great deal of time on his grandparents’ farm in rural Madison County. There, he enjoyed swimming in streams, ice-skating on frozen ponds, and riding bikes up and down the dirt roads with his sister, Beth, and a clan of cousins his age.

Kevin was raised in the Worldwide Church of God, and got to travel often for the Feast of Tabernacles (the eight-day long Festival instituted by God in the Old Testament). Some of his most fond memories come from those annual road trips with his family during which he had an opportunity to visit most of the continental United States. He grew up alongside two of his best friends in the church, Leo Dove and William Williams. Those three would remain good friends through most of their childhood and adolescent years, and are still close friends to this day. After the Worldwide Church of God split up, Kevin and his family eventually returned to the Living Church of God, where he was baptized March 19th, 2005.

Kevin continued to excel both in art and academics through High School, graduating 4th in his class with a 3.9 GPA, and being awarded the Jeff McNally Art Scholarship. From there, he eventually ended up attending the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts in Vancouver, BC. There, he studied the discipline of Traditional Animation, and after graduating top of his class, would go on to work on many animated features including Cartoon Network’s “George of the Jungle”, and Warner Brothers’ “Johnny Test”. After several years of travel, Kevin wound up in Boise Idaho, and liked it so much he decided to settle down!

Kevin now works freelance as a web developer/animator. When he is not working, Kevin loves to enjoy astronomy, travel, world culture and arts. Kevin is an avid tea connoisseur, and enjoys all things eclectic. Kevin thanks God for all of the amazing blessings that He has poured out upon Him, namely his wife, Tisha.

How they Met

Little did they know when they headed off for a church picnic at Anthony Lakes, Oregon, that they would end up discovering their life-long mates. Yet that is precisely what happened that beautiful and clear August day. Both had been praying that God would bring into their lives the “right one” for them, yet on this particular day, neither came to the activity looking for that special someone. Over the course of the day, the two got to spend time together hiking around the pristine mountain lake. One conversation led to another, and before the two knew it, they were in love!

Much to their excitement, they found that the more they conversed, the more they found they had in common. Having similar views on many subjects, similar style and taste, and both wanting to put God first in their relationship, they began counseling with their local elder who gave them the advice to abandon their plans to visit separate Feast sites that year and instead attend the Feast together in Newport, Oregon. The two were delighted at the opportunity to spend a week together (Spokane and Boise being nearly a seven-hour-drive apart), and though it cost them a great deal to cancel their prior reservations, they did so with enthusiasm, feeling the hand of God pushing them together.

Kevin, realizing that his current work would not be sufficient to support a family should the two get married, began to pray for a better job. Right before the two left for the Feast, Kevin got called in for an interview which did not seem to go in his favor. Understanding that God would open the right door for him, Kevin went on to the Feast undaunted. However, while at the Feast, he received a call from the same outfit, asking him to return for a second interview! As soon as he returned to Boise, he went in and, with God’s blessing, landed the job!

Being blessed with a wonderful new job, Kevin and Tisha continued to grow closer and increased in love for one another. Feeling that God’s timing was just right, they then approached their local minister for pre-marital counseling. The evidence that God’s hand was involved was undeniable as one blessing after another fell upon the two, and after having read through several suggested books and literature, the two asked for God’s blessing of marriage. The answer came through their counselor, who gave them a blessing to get engaged.

On the morning of Thanksgiving Day, after asking for her father’s permission, Kevin got down on his knee and asked Tisha to become his wife. She emotionally replied, “It would be my honor…yes, yes, YES!”. Later that day, Tisha’s father would make the announcement to the Patterson family that they had “agreed to let Kevin join the family” to much applause and congratulations. Three months later, on February 13th, 2011, they were joined in marriage before God as Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Yowell!

They are living happily ever after…