Harold and Bonnie Jo Adolph 
Harold Paul Adolph was born in China to Dr. and Mrs. Paul Adolph, who were American medical missionaries serving with China Inland Mission (CIM), now the Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF). In 1940 when World War II broke out, the family returned for 8 years to the United States, then returned to China for further service. Shortly thereafter, CIM ordered all its missionaries out of the mainland because of the Communist takeover. In 1950, Harold enrolled in Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. There he met his future wife, Bonnie Jo Adelsman. After receiving his undergraduate degree in 1954, he went to the University Of Pennsylvania College Of Medicine, from which he received his M.D. in 1958. He underwent a general surgery residency in the Canal Zone of Panama, a locale for training that proved excellent preparation for the mission field, and then served one term in the Navy. In 1966, he went to Ethiopia with his wife and two children as missionaries of the Sudan Interior Mission, now Society for International Ministries (SIM), a mission with 10 mission hospitals in Africa. He served eight years at Soddo Mission Hospital before being forced in 1974 to return to the U.S. due to the political and social upheaval in Ethiopia.
A board certified general surgeon and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, he set up a private practice in the U.S., where he was for numerous years before God again called him to serve in Africa. Listed in Who's Who, delivered from death innumerable times, Dr. Adolph was key in founding and developing the Pan-African College of Christian Surgeons, an outstanding program for the training of Christian surgeons for service in rural mission hospitals. He has authored five books. Because of his exemplary Christian life and service, he was chosen in 1997 by the Christian Medical and Dental Society to receive the Missionary of the Year Award with his wife Bonnie Jo. Their two children have been serving in Africa as missionaries for over ten years.
He has performed over 16,500 operations in the U.S. and abroad and helped thousands of recovering patients find both physical and spiritual health.
Harold at his father's grave. Dr Paul Adolph died one year after coming to assist Harold at Soddo Christian Hospital.
In 1999, Dr. Harold Adolph, a career missionary surgeon, told of plans to build a hospital in Southern Ethiopia. Starting with nothing but vision, the project was launched in 1999, opened in January 2005, and by March 2006 every bed was filled. Three million dollars has been donated thus far, with an additional two million dollars needed to complete the hospital. Services include maternal health, vaginal fistula repair surgery, internal medicine, general and plastic surgery, orthopedic surgery, and there are plans for an eye hospital, crippled children's and general rehabilitation hospital. As a specialist in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, my special interest is in seeing rehabilitation services developed, something nearly non-existent in that part of Africa.
Dr. and Mrs. Adolph recently traveled across the U.S. presenting a seminar, "Surgical Challenges of West Africa", at medical school Surgical Grand Rounds to challenge surgeons to consider surgery for the neglected third world where 90% of the surgical needs are. Now retired but little slowed, Dr. Adolph focuses his efforts in various ways at Raising up the Next Generation of Career Medical Missionaries.
"Today's Decisions - Tomorrow's Destiny"
http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/GUIDES/169.htm#3
http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/GUIDES/282.htm#3
http://www.dotmed.com/news/story/3637/
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