Interview by Gillian Fraser; JOY! Magazine October 2026
Max Immelman loved life. He loved golf, swimming, water polo, gaming, travelling, fishing, making people laugh, doing accents, and beatboxing. His Scottish accent was apparently particularly good. His mom, Barbara-Marié, remembers the simple things too – watching him come home from school, tired and hot in his blazer, and seeing his whole face light up when he spotted her. “The moment he saw me, he had this ginormous smile on his face, which lit up my heart and make me smile. Whenever he smiled, I smiled.” Max had plans. He wanted to travel more. He wanted to do things, see things, become things. He joked that one day he would marry a beautiful brunette, “like his mama”. He was 15 years and 11 months old when he died. Sitting with Barbara-Marié and Charl, you feel the weight of all that was lost. But another word kept coming up again and again as they spoke about their son: impact. Because somehow, in less than 16 years, Max touched more lives than even his parents realised.
He noticed people
“He was an absolute joy,” Barbara-Marié says. “He was funny, but he was also incredibly kind. He was interested in other people.” That was one of the things people remembered most about Max. In hospital, he would ask the nurses and cleaners about themselves – where they lived, how long they had worked there, whether they had children. “He made them feel so special,” Barbara-Marié says. He did the same at school. He noticed the child who was standing alone. He included people. He was comfortable speaking to adults and would ask thoughtful questions about their work or businesses. He looked people in the eye. He greeted properly. He asked advice from his parents. If he had done something wrong or seen something that made him uncomfortable, he spoke about it. Charl is careful not to make his son sound perfect. “We all think our children are amazing,” he says. “But everywhere we went, people were struck by Max in a way. There was just something about him.” The scale of that only became clear later. Max spent relatively short periods at both Paul Roos Gymnasium and Parel Vallei High School, yet both school communities were deeply affected by his death. “That limited time with people created such an impact,” Charl says. “That is the defining word around Max.”
The day everything changed
In May 2025, after Max had been feeling unwell for several weeks, he fainted at school. Blood tests followed. On 25 May, the family doctor asked Barbara-Marié, Charl, and Max to come in. Barbara-Marié knew something was wrong. The young doctor struggled to give them the news. Max had leukaemia – a rare, aggressive form. Before they left, the doctor prayed with them, then told them to go straight to hospital. They went home, packed a bag, and drove through. Even in those first terrifying hours, Charl says there were details that made them feel God was already ahead of them. The specialist on duty that weekend happened to be someone they knew from when Max was a baby. He became Max’s treating doctor. That was the beginning of a long year of treatment, hospital stays, medication, prayer, setbacks, and moments of hope. Max underwent chemotherapy and later a bone marrow transplant. In October, he rang the bell and was told he was cancer-free. Then, early the following year, the leukaemia returned.
My story for His glory
Max had grown up in a Christian home. He had been dedicated as a baby, later chose to be baptised, attended church, and was involved in Christian groups at school. But his parents say something changed during his illness. “I saw his faith mature,” Barbara-Marié says. Max had always wanted to create content online, but had been shy. Once he became ill, he started sharing updates about his journey on Instagram. Even on days when he felt terrible, he would gather himself, look at the camera, and speak to the people following him. His message was simple: God is there. Keep trusting Him. It was not fake positivity. Barbara-Marié remembers that there were times Max cried, struggled, and asked the questions any of us would ask. “He would say, ‘But God, why? Where are You? We’re praying, but nothing’s happening.’” But he never walked away from his faith. John 3:16 became particularly important to him, and in hospital, a handmade poster often travelled with him from room to room. On it were the words: “My story for His glory.” His illness became a platform he never asked for, and he used it to point people towards Jesus. “He would say, ‘Guys, just remember, no matter what you’re going through, the Lord is always with you,’” Barbara-Marié recalls. “That was really important for Max. No matter what you are going through, the Lord has got your back.”
Believing for a different ending
The Immelmans did not quietly resign themselves to losing Max. They prayed for healing. Their church prayed. Friends prayed. Prayer groups they had never met prayed. People overseas prayed. Food arrived. Medicine was provided at moments when they desperately needed it. Doctors and people appeared at the right time. Charl kept notes and voice recordings because there were so many moments when he believed he could see God in the details. “That is why I was so convinced he was going to get through,” he says. “I said, the Lord is in every detail.” They believed Max would live. But Max did not recover. That tension sits at the heart of their story. “We didn’t get the answer we wanted,” Charl says. “But you can’t say God wasn’t there.”
Three days at home
Towards the end, Max came home from the hospital. The family had nurses and palliative care in place, although Barbara-Marié says she did not initially understand what palliative care actually meant. She thought the nurses were there to help with his medication and care while he recovered at home. Max had three days. They were hard days, but Charl remembers them with deep gratitude too. Max was where he wanted to be. He was with his family. He saw his puppy. “Max wanted to come home, he was tired of hospitals. And we’re so grateful he could spend his last days in his own bed surrounded by his family and his new puppy, Callaway”, Barbara-Marié shares. There were conversations, chuckles, and precious moments together. What struck his parents most was his peace. Max had struggled with anxiety and fear at times in his life. Yet, as the end approached, Charl says the fear seemed to be gone. “Here he was, marching into the face of death. At the end, no fear.” Barbara-Marié remembers a peace over their home and over the family that she still struggles to explain. Then Max died at home with the people he loved close by.
When faith is shaken
What happens to faith when you pray, believe, stand on Scripture, do everything you know to do – and your child still dies? Charl does not pretend that question has been easy. “When your son dies, and you trusted Him and believed Him, it makes you question how much of the promises you can actually stand on,” he says. He was not angry with God, but he was deeply shaken. He describes becoming disillusioned with some of the way he had understood faith and believing. There was even the temptation to look inward and ask whether perhaps they had not prayed enough, believed enough, or should have done something differently. He now calls that “a trap”. Instead, the loss has forced him deeper. “You think you’re on a firm foundation, and then suddenly it feels like shifting sand. But you clear the shifting sand away, and actually you land on something solid underneath it. It’s a deeper level of faith.” Barbara-Marié’s grief looks different, and she is very open about that. “Christianity is a relationship with the Lord,” she says. “It’s talking to the Lord constantly – your good days, your bad days, your fears, your doubts. God is big enough to handle it. You can tell Him, ‘I’m upset.’” She is upset. She cries. Some days she struggles to pray. She has stepped back from singing and playing violin in the worship team because she cannot stand on a stage and pretend she is okay when she is not. “I’m not a hypocrite,” she says simply. “I cannot say, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I’m happy,’ when I am broken.” Then she adds the sentence that says perhaps more than any polished testimony could: “That doesn’t take away the fact that I know the Lord is there, and I know that He loves me.” Their grief is still raw. There is no neat ending here. But there is still faith.
A life of impact
After Max died, Barbara-Marié and Charl began hearing stories they had never known. People they had never met had followed his Instagram updates. Adults and children had been encouraged by him. The auditorium at his memorial filled with people. Teenagers from both schools came to honour a boy many of them had known for only a short time. Jannie de Villiers, Headmaster of Paul Roos Gymnasium, remembers Max as someone who left a deep impression: “I thank God for the privilege of having met Max. He made a huge impression on me through his maturity, calmness of spirit, the way he spoke with wisdom beyond his years, his courage and gentle strength, and his trust in God, in whose arms he is most certainly resting now – free from the illness he fought for so long.” The family heard from people who had watched his journey from outside South Africa, and they heard how deeply the memorial itself had affected those who attended. While Max was still alive, his Grade 10 classmates had also filled a book with messages telling him what he meant to them. Barbara-Marié sat beside him in hospital and read page after page aloud. Again and again, she discovered how Max had noticed people, included them, and made them feel seen. For Barbara-Marié and Charl, these stories have helped them understand what they had not fully seen while Max was alive. His impact was not about having a huge platform. Often, it was simply about the person standing in front of him – the nurse entering his hospital room, the child standing alone at school, the person watching one of his updates from somewhere he would never know. Near the end of our conversation, I asked Barbara-Marie and Charl what Max would want this article to say if he could read it. Their answer came quickly: “Follow the Lord. No matter what.” Max lived only 15 years and 11 months. He desperately wanted more time. But the life he did have was not small. And perhaps the clearest summary of it is still the one that sat beside him through so much of his illness: My story for His glory.
A message found on Max’s cellphone (His own words)
People sometimes ask me, “Max, are you happy you got leukaemia?” Of course not. But I will say this: it is my story for His glory. My tribulation is small compared to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He laid down His perfect life so that we could have eternal life. This journey taught me to number my days and to be grateful for a bed to sleep in, for health, for family, for church, and for a relationship with Jesus, because everything can change in an instant. So live with kindness. Live with compassion. Live with a thankful heart. Thank you so much for listening to my testimony. God bless.
This article appears in the October 2026 issue of JOY! Magazine. Read the digital version of this magazine here: joygifts.co.za
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Date published: 02/10/2026
Feature image: Sourced from original article published in the October issue of JOY! Magazine
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