About Us

John & Linda Spriegel have had a heart for missions since before they even met each other.  And their three children, Rebecca, Julia and Joel spent much of their lives growing up in Africa so missions and being a "missionary kid" has become part of their blood.

Our prayer card preparing to go to Tandala for 1996

John grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and became a Christian during high school. Short term high school mission trips opened his eyes to people living out their faith 24x7.  During a summer in college, he experienced cross-cultural medical missions through a health clinic in poor rural Mississippi.  The summer before medical school, he experienced medical missions in India and became aware of the importance of community health.  John specialized in Internal Medicine and then studied Preventive Medicine as part of his fellowship in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.  A year or so after completing his fellowship, God called John to serve needy patients in Christ's name cross-culturally.  Over the years, this included working in an inner-city clinic in Benton Harbor, serving at Tandala Hospital in northwestern Congo, and since 2005 serving at Tenwek Hospital in western Kenya.  John met Linda in 1990 and they got married in 1991, soon after Linda returned from Congo.

Linda grew up in Philips, Nebraska, beoming a Christian as a child in a missions-minded family. When Linda felt the call to become a career missionary, her parents told her that they had been praying that one of their children would become a missionary.  After studying nursing at the University of Nebraska, Linda entered a discipleship program with Nurses Christian Fellowship, learning how to apply her Christian faith in the workplace as a nurse.  She earned a masters degree from Trinity Seminary, before becoming a missionary with the Evangelical Free Church Mission, serving at Tandala Hospital in northwestern Congo (then called Zaire).  After a term in nursing education, she served in Congo working with youth and women's discipleship and serving in field leadership.  She returned from Congo in 1991 to marry John.

John and Linda spent 1996-97 in Africa, initially at Tandala Hospital in northwestern Zaire.  They departed from Zaire in January 1997 due to the approaching war and evacuated to Tenwek in western Kenya.  There they completed their two year term.  Returning to the States, John worked in internal medicine at Southwestern Medical Clinic in southwestern Michigan and in public health at his local public health department.  In 2005 John and Linda returned to Tenwek Hospital as career missionaries serving with World Gospel Mission.

Graduation from RVA, July 13, 2013

Rebecca and Julia are twins, born in 1994 so they were 2 years old by the time they reached Tandala in Zaire.  Their brother Joel was born in 1998, not long after John & Linda returned to America from Kenya. All three were home schooled for part of their oversees years, and then attended Rift Valley Academy, about 3 hours away from Tenwek. Rebecca and Julia graduated from RVA in July 2013. Rebecca began Wheaton College in Illinois in August 2013 and is studying Chemistry, hoping to become a high school teacher. At the same time Julia began Indiana Wesleyan University and is studying to become a nurse.  She hopes to someday become a missionary nurse.  Joel attended Saint Joseph Public High School as a sophomore during our homeland ministry assignment year of 2013-14, and will resume at RVA for his junior and senior years, planning to graduate there in July 2016.