(a chapter from the book: Far from Rome Near to God)
Dr. Manuel Garrido Aldama was born the second of six boys and one girl. His father was a lawyer and wanted his children to have a high literary education and his mother who was a fervent Roman Catholic lady wanted her children to have a strict religious education.
The children had to attend Mass on Sundays, recite prayers and the Rosary daily. At eleven years of age he was sent to a seminary in Madrid. Not wanting to disappoint his mother he trained to be a priest.
He became disillusioned as a result of his studies and watching and listening to other priests talk about how they felt about being a priest. He tells about his new birth experience, how he went to England and later to Peru in South America as a missionary.
In transition from priest to evangelist he went to England and from there to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to teach Latin. While he was there his mother wrote that she was very ill. He then went back to Spain but found that she was not as ill as she had made him believe. He then went to England and there met an Anglican minister who told him that he didn't know Christ as his Saviour and didn't have him in his heart. He heard the people in his church pray for him.
The next Sunday he went to a Protestant church where a Bishop from Ontario, Canada stressed that "You must be born again" just as Jesus had told Nicodemus. Shortly after this he prayed and met Jesus. He then experienced a peace he had never known.
After refusing to serve under the High Church of England he was asked to go to Peru to work in an Evangelical bookstore and help with Spanish Gospel publications. This he did.
Later, in spite of believing that evangelism should take place face to face, he became involved with HCJB and became a Gospel radio minister reaching many people for Jesus Christ over the air.
This book was printed in 1946 by Zondervan Publishing House. It may be found on-line. www.thebereancall.org/node/4554
- Anna Kroeker
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