WhatsApp weekly update 19-25 April 2026

What a week of gifts and surprises! On Thursday we had a wonderful Volmoed 40 celebration service, followed by a blessing of the Tutu rose garden, beautifully designed by Theresa and built by the Volmoed staff.

For those who do not know, the farm “Volmoed” in the Hemel-en-Aarde valley close to Hermanus was bought in 1986 by visionaries (Bernhard Turkstra and Barry Wood) who had a deep concern for South Africa as it descended into what many believe would become a civil war. Archbishop Tutu became the patron of Volmoed, a place set aside for healing, justice and reconciliation.

The Volmoed youth programme was only launched 10 years ago, and was and still is an attempt to move beyond symbolic reconciliation to something more concrete. Young adult alienation and marginalization is a huge crisis in South Africa.

Some of the history of Volmoed can be viewed in a video that Deon Kitching produced as a gift (and a surprise) to Volmoed. I hope many of you will watch it. Please see

Before the Thursday service, the young people welcomed the visitors with some drumming (on drums they made) and also drummed some more after the service. We call it “the heartbeat of God”.

Immediately after the service, one of the regulars asked to talk to me. He asked about the young man going to Taizé and offered to pay for some good clothing for him! (Surprise and gift no 2). I do not have his permission to give his name, but thank you dear angel! Most people are simply amazing.

Two Episcopal clergy (Jordan and Fulton) also visited us at Volmoed on Thursday. In the course of our conversation, I asked: “What is the possibility of developing a unique app that can connect unemployed young people and those with opportunities and resources, where they can find one another, where the young people can earn points by doing certain things and be able to spend those points at retail stores or even at spaza shops”? They, together with Rene August and Charlton Alexander thought it was more than do-able. Watch this space …

We also received a wonderful invitation (another gift) from Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela for some of us to witness creativity in action by visiting an archive museum on Wednesday 29 April, in preparation for the transgenerational wellness research with Avreq at Stellenbosch university. Prof Pumla explains that “One of the goals of the u’GOOD project is to create a multimedia archive of stories and young people’s creative outputs.” We look forward to seeing this museum in Woodstock and being inspired and surprised by it!

Lastly: I have been spending most of this week with a senior delegation from the Reformed Church in America. Travelling with them also helped to deepen relationship with the Dutch Reformed Church and Uniting Reformed Church national leadership. One of the gifts of this week was to visit the SACC at their headquarters in Johannesburg (Khotso house) and reconnect with a young woman called Karabo Mamabolo. She is a dynamic youth leader who has just been appointed to a role on the whole continent. Congratulations on your new role, Karabo! She hopes to attend the 10th anniversary celebrations in Hermanus from 12-16 June.

God is indeed a “God of surprises”. We look forward to besurprised many times over the next few weeks and months … especially as South Africa celebrates Freedom Day on Monday 27 April. Our “freedom” is indeed incomplete … it is our historic mission to complete it, especially for young people to benefit from it. May it be so.

Edwin Arrison