Behalwe my pa, wil elkeen nou huis toe gaan.

Here behalwe means except for or apart from.

In Afrikaans, both of these are common:

• Behalwe my pa
• Behalwe vir my pa

So vir is often used, especially in everyday speech, but it is not required here. The version in your sentence is completely natural.

This is because Afrikaans usually follows a verb-second pattern in main clauses.

The first position in the sentence is already taken by Behalwe my pa. Once that happens, the finite verb must come next:

• Behalwe my pa, wil elkeen nou huis toe gaan.

So the order is:

1. fronted phrase: Behalwe my pa
2. finite verb: wil
3. subject: elkeen

If the subject came first, then you would get normal subject-first order, for example:

• Elkeen wil nou huis toe gaan.

Elkeen literally means each one. In many sentences, it is best translated as everyone.

It has a slightly more individual, distributive feel than almal:

• elkeen = each one / everyone
• almal = everyone / all of them

In this sentence, elkeen means that every person in the group, individually, wants to go home.

Because wil is a modal verb, meaning want to.

In Afrikaans, after a modal verb like wil, the main verb goes to the end of the clause in its basic form:

• wil ... gaan = wants to go

So:

• elkeen wil gaan = everyone wants to go

This is very similar to English want to go, except Afrikaans does not use te after wil in this structure.

That is the normal place for the main verb when a modal verb is present.

In a clause with wil, kan, moet, sal, etc., the conjugated/modal verb comes earlier, and the second verb goes to the end:

• Ek wil huis toe gaan.
• Sy kan Afrikaans praat.
• Ons moet nou vertrek.

So in your sentence, gaan is at the end because it is the main verb linked to wil.

Huis toe means home or toward home after a verb of movement.

It is the normal Afrikaans way to say go home:

• huis toe gaan = go home

This is idiomatic. You should learn huis toe as a set expression.

Because huis toe is the idiomatic expression for going home.

There is an important difference:

• huis toe gaan = go home
• na die huis gaan = go to the house

The second one sounds more like you are going to a specific building, not necessarily home in the personal sense. So in this sentence, huis toe is the natural choice.

In this expression, toe shows movement toward a place.

You will see it in other common expressions too:

• skool toe gaan = go to school
• bed toe gaan = go to bed
• huis toe kom = come home

So toe here is not the same as the other Afrikaans toe that can mean then or appear in time clauses. In huis toe, it is part of a direction expression.

Nou usually sits in the middle part of the clause, after the subject or near other adverbial material.

So this is very normal:

• wil elkeen nou huis toe gaan

Here nou means now / at this point. Its position is natural and neutral. You can sometimes move adverbs around for emphasis, but the version in your sentence is standard and easy to understand.

The comma separates the introductory exception phrase from the rest of the sentence.

It helps the reader hear a pause:

• Behalwe my pa, ...

In actual Afrikaans writing, punctuation with short introductory phrases can vary a bit, but the comma here is perfectly natural and helps make the structure clear.

Yes. Pa is the normal everyday word for dad/father.

• my pa = my dad / my father

A more formal word is vader, but that is much less common in ordinary conversation. So my pa sounds very natural.

Yes. A very natural alternative is:

• Almal behalwe my pa wil nou huis toe gaan.

That also means the same thing. English speakers often find this version easier to process because everyone except my father stays together as one unit.

Your original sentence is still completely correct; it just fronts the exception phrase for emphasis.