On Sunday morning, a WhatsApp message from Jan Grobbelaar spread rapidly across the country, breaking news of a fire at a Kalahari lodge that has now claimed the lives of 10 people.

Since then the pastor has received numerous messages of support and sympathy from South Africans heartbroken by the news that six of the dead were young children from the Western Cape farming town of Ceres.

Grobbelaar’s life since Sunday has been filled with dozens of tear-filled counselling sessions with friends and neighbours of the three families involved in the tragedy at Blinkwater Desert Place Manor...