Fuente, Luis Guillermo Alfredo Bellido de la

Luis Guillermo Alfredo Bellido de la Fuente was a Peruvian pastor, Adventist missionary, and administrator in Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Argentina.¹

Early Years and Acceptance of Adventism

Luis Guillermo Alfredo Bellido de la Fuente was born in Arequipa, Peru, on May 21, 1900. At the age of 26 he married Amalia Ampuero Matta, and they had four daughters: Carmen Raquel Adela Teresa Bellido Ampuero de Treiyer, Carmen Amalia Bellido Ampuero de Steger, Amparo Beatriz Bellido Ampuero de Winkler, and Berta Raquel Bellido Ampuero.

When Alfredo Fuente was 30 years old, he heard about the Adventists through reading the book The Great Controversy, by Ellen G. White.² Alfredo and Amalia lived in Mollendo, Peru, where they worked in a drugstore. After reading the Bible and The Great Controversy, Alfredo stopped smoking and started to keep the Sabbath and attend church. He immediately gave the message to his wife, sister-in-law, and two brothers-in-law: Teresa, Manuel, and Víctor Ampuero Matta. All of them embraced the Adventist faith amid great social and family opposition.³

Missionary Service

In the same year, 1930, he was called to work in the Adventist organization as a missionary.⁴ He began working as manager of the American Clinic of Juliaca, Peru, then in Bolivia at the Chulumani Hospital, and later at the Publications Society in La Paz, Bolivia. Back in Peru he was the manager of the Adventist Polyclinic of Arequipa, his hometown.

In 1938 the Inca Union (Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador) sent him for two years to River Plate Adventist Academy, Entre Ríos, Argentina, in order to study theology, but when he finished the first year of studies, the Austral Union Conference (Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) called him to be the treasurer-secretary of the former North Argentina Mission (1939–1942) with headquarters in Corrientes, Argentina. Between 1942 and 1946 he was the treasurer secretary of the Buenos Aires Conference, Argentina, and from 1947 to 1950 he was the manager of the River Plate Adventist Sanitarium, Entre Ríos, Argentina. In 1950 he was ordained to the ministry and called to be the president of Uruguay Mission.⁵ Then in 1955, the year that his wife died, he was sent to be the manager of the Adventist factory, Alimentos Gránix, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and stayed there until 1962.⁶ He also served as a manager of Belgrano Adventist Clinic, in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and finally as associate auditor, in the Austral Union Conference.

In 1964 he retired and returned to Peru, where he collaborated as associate trustee of the Inca Union. During the ten years he worked there he defended the Adventist Church in a conflict provoked by a separatist group in Peru. For him, in 1969, following the serious problems faced by the church, he was appointed attorney and field secretary of the Inca Union. Finally, in 1974, at the age of 74, he retired definitively.

Last Years and Legacy

In 1994 he moved to Argentina to spend his last days near his daughters and to rest in the grave where his wife was resting. He died in Libertador San Martín, Argentina, on February 19, 2003, at the age of 102. In addition to his daughters and sons-in-law, he had ten grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

Alfredo Bellido was an example of faithfulness to the Adventist cause, and preached the gospel extensively in several countries of the South American Division. 

Sources

Alberro, Samuel. “Necrología” [Obituary]. Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], May 1962.

Bellido, Alfredo. “El libro que cambió mi vida” [The Book That Changed My Life]. Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], March 1972, 8, 9.

———. “La obra evangélica en Uruguay” [The gospel work in Uruguay]. La Revista Adventista [Adventist Review] (October 1952): 13.

———. “Quería quemar los libros” [I wanted to burn the books]. La Revista Adventista [Adventist Review] (October 18, 1937): 10.

Plenc, Daniel Oscar. “Misioneros en el Uruguay—2” [Missionaries in Uruguay—2]. Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], May 2017, 9.

———. Tributo a la esperanza: la Iglesia de Colonia Pintos Viana [Tribute to Hope: The Church of Colonia Pintos Viana]. Rosario, Santa Fe: by the author, 2014.

Steger, Carlos A. “Todo por un libro” [Everything for a Book]. Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], March 2004, 2, 3.

Wasiuk, Oscar N. Reseña histórica de la Iglesia Adventista del 7° Día en el Uruguay [Historical Review of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Uruguay]. 1st ed. Buenos Aires: South American Spanish Publishing House, 1996.

Notes

1. Words prepared for the funeral of Alfredo Bellido, in Libertador San Martín, Entre Ríos, Argentina. See also Daniel Oscar Plenc, Tributo a la esperanza: la Iglesia de Colonia Pintos Viana [Tribute to Hope: the Church of Colonia Pintos Viana] (Rosario, Santa Fe: by the author, 2014), 147–149; Carlos A. Steger, “Todo por un libro” [Everything for a Book], Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], March 2004, 2, 3.↩

2. In 1925 Alfredo’s father bought some religious books from a young Adventist carpenter called Leónidas Cárdenas, among them The Great Controversy, by Ellen G. White, and Our Day in the Light of Prophecy, by William A. Spicer. Reading those books, plus the book Hacia la edad de oro [Toward the Golden Age], led Alfredo Bellido to conversion. See Alfredo Bellido, “El libro que cambió mi vida” [The Book That Changed My Life], Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], March 1972, 8, 9.↩

3. Amalia Ampuero, Bellido’s wife, was a fervent Catholic. She accepted the Adventism through Bible studies that she received from her husband. Manuel Ampuero Matta, Amalia’s brother, was baptized a little later, by Juan Plenc. Víctor E. Ampuero Matta was baptized in Mollendo (1931), by Enrique Westphal. See Alfredo Bellido, “Quería quemar los libros” [I Wanted to Burn the Books], Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], October 18, 1937, 10.↩

4. Because of the Sabbath, Bellido had to leave the drugstore. So R. J. Roy, president of the Lake Titicaca Mission, Peru, invited him to work as an administrator of the Juliaca Adventist Clinic, Peru.↩

5. Oscar N. Wasiuk, Reseña histórica de la Iglesia Adventista del 7° Día en el Uruguay [Historical Review of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Uruguay], 1st ed. (Buenos Aires: South American Spanish Publishing House, 1996), 44, 45; Daniel Oscar Plenc, “Misioneros en el Uruguay—2” [Missionaries in Uruguay—2], Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], May 2017, 9. See also Alfredo Bellido, “La obra evangélica en Uruguay” [The Gospel Work in Uruguay], Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], October 1952, 13.↩

6. See Amalia de Bellido’s obituary: Samuel Alberro, “Necrología” [Obituary], Revista Adventista [Adventist Review], May 1962, 19.↩