Bonnie Jo Adelsman was born in 1933, the fourth daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Adelsman. She grew up in Mason City, Iowa, but during her later adolescence her family lived in Wheaton, Illinois. She attended Wheaton College as a Home Economics major and graduated in 1955. While at Wheaton, she met and became engaged to pre-med student Harold Adolph. Through Adolph's influence, she also decided to become a missionary. They were married August 19, 1955.

They moved several times in the next few years. From 1955 until 1958, they lived in Philadelphia while Harold completed his M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. While in Philadelphia, Bonnie Jo taught home economics at a public junior high school. Then they moved to the Canal Zone in Panama, where Harold took his surgical residency at Gorgas Hospital. Their two children were born during this period: David Harold (1959) and Carolyn Joy (1961). In 1962, the family moved to Banner Elk, North Carolina, for Harold's surgical preceptorship. During this time, the Adolphs were accepted by the Sudan Interior Mission for service in Ethiopia. In 1965, it was time for Harold to complete his military service. He became an officer in the navy and was assigned to the HSA Station Hospital in Taiwan. The next year, the family headed for Ethiopia.

Most of the next eight years were spent at SIM's hospital in Soddo. While Harold worked in the hospital, Bonnie Jo was mainly occupied with her duties as wife and mother, but she also became hospital bookkeeper, teaching her children and leading Bible classes for hospital staff. The entire family came back to Wheaton in 1970 for a year on furlough. In 1974, because of growing difficulties with the new national government, the Adolphs left Ethiopia for good and returned to Wheaton, where Harold set up a practice. In 1981, Harold and Bonnie Jo traveled to Bangladesh to serve as short term missionaries for about two months. Harold was surgeon at the Memorial Christian Hospital in Malumghat. They also visited briefly in Hong Kong and Taiwan. From December 1983 to February 1984 they again, along with their daughter, served as short term medical missionaries in the Central African Republic.