George Daneel was a 5th generation South African of Scottish and Belgian descent and a member of the Afrikaner community. He became a Dutch Reformed Church minister, a rugby Springbok, and a national icon. While at university he met Dr Frank Buchman, initiator of Moral Re-Armament (MRA) who had a profound effect on his life. He served with distinction as a chaplain in WW 2.
After the war he served as minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape. Whilst there he reconnected with his MRA friends, and together with Joey, his wife, flew to Caux, Switzerland, for the historic conference there in 1947.
In 1953 he felt called to devote all his time to the work of MRA, and moved with his wife and 3 young daughters to Pretoria. There he worked very closely with Dr William NKomo, an African Nationalist leader. They took their message of sincere apology and forgiveness to Caux and many countries around the world.
Together with like-minded colleagues in the Dutch Reformed Church, George Daneel wrote a letter to the then Prime Minister, John Vorster, condemning the policy of Apartheid. He went to see John Vorster personally, only to receive a firm rebuke and an accusation of being unpatriotic.
George and Joey moved to Windhoek, Namibia in 1982, where they played an integral part in the peaceful transition to independence of that country. He died at the age of 100, months after the inauguration of President Nelson Mandela in 2004.
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