John was born in Wharton, Texas on February 6, 1982. Jimmy and Sylvia Huey took him home to his 2-year old brother. Stephen was so delighted with his baby brother that he got all his toys together and dumped them into John's crib to share with him.

His family lived in El Campo long enough for him to play one season of t-ball before they moved to Nigeria as missionaries in the spring of 1989. Some might say he would be missing out by moving off to Africa, but in reality, he found himself in paradise.

Over the next few years, John developed a reputation as he chased huge redheaded lizards, climbed every frangipani and almond tree in sight, got so dirty playing in the bush that the family joked about his bath water, and grew into a jack-of-all-trades daredevil. After living for a year in Ogbomosho, his family moved to Lagos, a city of 10 million. However, the dense population didn't slow him down, because he now had a 10-foot wall to dance upon and was still able to catch cat-sized bush rats in the traps he built. He stayed busy building all sorts of traps, catapults, crossbows, and even a floor-to-ceiling aviary to house the birds he caught.

After 3 years in Lagos, the family moved back to Texas for a year. He picked up the guitar in 5th grade in El Campo, and he and his brother joined a local soccer team. After one quick year, they headed back to Nigeria, but this time they moved to the north.

John then attended a K-12 missions school called Hillcrest. His 30+ classmates came from about a dozen countries, including Nigeria, India, New Zealand, Poland, Korea, Lebanon, Bulgaria and the Netherlands. His parents were the hostel parents in the Crescent Hill hostel (dorm for boarding students), so he had several extra brothers and sisters!

In his freshman year, he stayed busy with volleyball, track and field, basketball and soccer. He was able to join the 12-Hour Relay team that his brother captained that year, and he played percussion in the orchestra.