Owen Britz, who passed away shortly before Christmas, was well-known in Dundee and Wasbank, having farmed in the area for 50 years.
He planted acres of peanuts at Duikershoek and farmed with red Nguni cattle on Krantzkop and Daskrantz in the Sixties and Seventies. For some years, in order to create a monthly cash input, he was the “Dip Inspector” in the Wasbank and later in the Helpmekaar area. Many were the grateful farmers whose tractors and implements were restored or properly set by his willing expertise. Not to mention the calves he helped deliver when the vet could not come.
But what was more important to Owen was his love for God and his desire for others to love Him too. He was often asked to preach in different churches. Denominationalism had no place in his thinking. For 22 years he gave Gideon New Testaments to the (old) Std 6 learners in all the schools in the area – Dundee, Glencoe, Sibongile, Pomeroy, Rorke’s Drift, Nqutu, eMondlho, and further into the depths of Northern KwaZulu. Sometimes he had a colleague with him but often he went alone. In all those years he never had a puncture or breakdown of any kind. And always, he told the youngsters how much God loves them.
After selling the little ‘retirement’ farm “Hadinuff”, he moved to the Natal South Coast to help build up a new mission farm and Bible School for Crusade for Christ, near Ramsgate. He worked there for seven years and then retired properly to a little cottage he built on his daughter, Lynthea’s, property in Forest Hills, Kloof. He was there for a year. Then, in September he was diagnosed with aggressive pancreatic cancer. After a brief, brave battle he passed away on December 8. His body was cremated and a memorial service was held on December 20 win the Waterfall Methodist Church.
His was a full life, well lived to the glory of God.