He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Poly Prep School before coming to Princeton. He left Princeton after his freshman year and transferred to Wheaton College in Illinois, where he studied missions and earned a bachelor’s degree with honor.
John received a medical degree from Cornell Medical School and took several short-term mission trips before studying further at Columbia Bible College in South Carolina to prepare for evangelical medical mission work.
In 1971, he married Evangeline Olsen and moved to Hong Kong, where they served as missionaries with the Evangelical Free Church. He served at Kowloon Hospital as a medical missionary and administrator for construction and finance of the mission. Returning to the United States, he practiced family medicine in Largo and Clearwater, Fla.
John is survived by two children and two grandchildren.