When A DNA Test Changes Everything

A single email during COVID turned into a paternity test, a flight to an empty LAX, and a face-to-face meeting with a 46-year-old son Rick Wertz never knew existed. That’s the kind of story that sounds impossible until you hear the details, and it opens a bigger question many men carry quietly: what do you do with the father-wound, the love deficit, and the years you can’t get back?

We sit down with Rick, the founder of Faithful Fathering, to trace the path from a childhood marked by violence, alcoholism, and untreated wartime trauma to a life rebuilt through faith, Scripture, and intentional fatherhood. He shares the moment he realized his work and travel had made him a stranger in his own home, and how that wake-up call pushed him toward accountability, spiritual discipline, and a mission to equip churches to encourage dads rather than only critique them.

Then the “COVID curveballs” hit: first, discovering and blessing an adult son who had been searching for decades, and second, learning through DNA results that he also had a half-brother and that long-held family secrets were revealed. We talk adoption reunion, genetic mirroring, forgiveness, boundaries for kids and parents in a world of social media and pornography, and why knowing the Heavenly Father changes how we handle every part of the story.

If this conversation helps you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so more men can find it.

Here is a link to Rick's website to learn more:

https://faithfulfathering.org/

Chapter Markers

• 0:00
• Welcome To Wrestling The Inner Man
• 0:34
• Valentine’s Day And The Love Deficit
• 1:33
• A Childhood Shaped By Violence
• 4:31
• Chasing Approval Through Work
• 6:52
• Faithful Fathering And A Biblical Worldview
• 9:48
• The DNA Email That Introduced A Son
• 14:43
• A Second Curveball And A Half-Brother
• 20:11
• Boundaries, Redemption, And Real Fathering
• 22:46
• Final Counsel And Closing Prayer

Visit www.thesavagepath.com for more on David, his book The Savage Path: A Memoir of Modern Masculinity, and the Savage Path Ministries Corp.

Transcript

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Welcome To Wrestling The Inner Man

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Wrestling with the Inner Man. Because the first fight we face each and every day is a fight with our own flesh. Do we listen to our selfish, sinful nature or to our divine nature guided by the Holy Spirit? Your host, David Stavrid, is a product of the West Texas Desert and Energy Industry. His desire is to inspire and help other men win spiritual warfare. We hope you're ready to rumble because wrestling with the inner man begins now.

Valentine’s Day And The Love Deficit

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Good evening, WWM listeners. We're coming off of Valentine's Day earlier this week, the day most dedicated to love across our nation each year. But holidays which celebrate love can make those who are experiencing a love deficit feel more afflicted. Adults who experienced abuse as children or who were put up for adoption often have lingering doubts about themselves and their worthiness to be loved. It's a tender topic for tender hearts, but my guest today has a fantastic story of transformation and successful ministry through his organization called Faithful Fathering. He also has his own podcast under that same name and recently recorded a three-part series called In Search of a Father, which I highly recommend you check out because we can't get into the same level of depth here with the time that we have.

A Childhood Shaped By Violence

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Sure, sure. Well, why why I'm in fathering ministry? It's usually there is a deficit as you referenced, but uh you know my background is I grew up in a violent alcoholic home. You know, my always said dad came back from the war, World War II, different I kind of dated myself right there, didn't I? Uh came back from World War II, a different man than she married. And uh, you know, today we call it PTSD. Uh back then they just didn't know what it was. He self-medicated with alcohol and uh it was a violent alki. And uh our home was kind of a battlefield uh as well. You know, we didn't know when the explosion was going off. Uh dad could be on a rampage or uh, you know, abuse or whatever, and uh but he didn't always have to be drunk to be on a rampage. It just uh was in his he was just trying to deal with uh some of the things he dealt with as a as a Hellcat pilot in the South Pacific. Uh you know, our home, our my uh my mother was a devout Catholic. Our home, she made sure we got to mass, and she did the best she could do to provide for the family dad did not provide, you know, physically, emotionally, or uh financially or spiritually in any way. Uh I had three elder sisters. They all left home early, married young to get out of the home situation, and I had my last run-in with uh dad at uh at 13 and left. Uh my eldest sister at that time was generous enough to open up her home to provide a safer living environment. Uh and uh and her husband was a father figure in my life as I as I matured. I left home with uh really two prayers. One would be that I would be blessed with a happy and healthful uh marriage and family I didn't know growing up, and the other was that uh uh I'd lived somewhere above the poverty line that we'd grown up well below. And uh so I I was blessed through some athleticism to have an opportunity to uh go to uh go to college, first one in my family to graduate from college, actually. But uh I went down to uh southern Kansas to a junior college where I met my bride to be. And uh and and uh as we wrapped up that junior college time, we knew we were right for each other, but I had told her at that juncture all three of my sisters had divorced and uh uh and and uh won twice. And then my mother's divorce. I said, There are already five divorces in my family, I didn't want to be the sixth. So she went off to Oklahoma State to wrap up her degree, and the University of Kansas picked me up where I went and wrapped up my degree, got a mechanical engineering degree out of the University of Kansas, and uh I told her, I said, You have two years to find somebody to take better care of you than I could. I didn't say better looking, I just said uh uh thank goodness this is radio. Uh but the uh uh she uh she really she told her mother that and her mother said, He said, What? You know? And uh but I I was serious that uh if we if we're gonna make the commitment, uh I meant the commitment fully. Uh and uh I I took it very uh never meant it meant any words uh more uh uh sincerely uh and in in you know just intentionally to uh say I do uh until death do we part.

Chasing Approval Through Work

SPEAKER_00 4:31

So uh uh so we did uh uh when I we both graduated in May of 1980. Uh I took a job with the Oilfield Services Company where I uh went to work throwing iron uh in the oil field and uh just always trying to prove myself a man that I always wanted to hear from Dad. You know, we all strive for that affirmation from our father, which I never did get, uh and but I was trying to get it in my performance. And uh so I went to work and she went to planning the wedding. We got married in the fall of 1980, and and we proceeded to move nine times in the first 15 years of marriage. And uh uh we uh I said, you know, our paychecks in Wichita Falls, our paychecks in Pampa. She said, Tampa? I said, No, Pampa. It's a lovely town up in the Panhandle, Texas, and uh we were in Midland. Our first foreign assignment was New Orleans, and then we went over to uh uh overseas for a couple of stops. Um by the way, our daughter came into the world in 1986, our son in 1988, but I was busy and traveling about 75, 80 percent of the time. Uh I came back from a uh an extended trip about two weeks away and on uh mid morning on a Saturday, and walking through the house, I I asked my uh bride who who that I was going back to to the office to wrap up paperwork from the trip because I had to get ready for meetings Monday morning. I asked my bride who that was out there playing with our daughter, and she said, That's your son. You're traveling too much. And just a good Kansas farm girl, she didn't say it judgmentally or even condescendingly, she just said it as a matter of fact. Uh but as a Catholic kid, you know, I knew who God was, I knew who Jesus was, but that morning the uh the Holy Spirit introduced himself to me and said, Son, I've answered your prayers, and you're taking these blessings for granted. Uh furthermore, I'm losing a generation because of dad's like you. And that was my wake-up call, David, that uh I just realized I had to do something different. Uh we we did leave the corporate world in '95. I had three goals. One was that I would find uh a church that I could get engaged in. Uh I wanted to find some men that would hold me accountable in my walk with Christ. And I sure needed to learn something about this role as a dad because as I tried to disassociate myself with my dad, go the opposite direction of the dad that raised me, uh, I wasn't doing real well on the fathering front. And uh the Lord uh honored that.

Faithful Fathering And A Biblical Worldview

SPEAKER_00 6:52

He provided a a good church. Uh he introduced me to Dr. Ken Canfield, who founded the National Center for Fathering, and I just I tried to uh be like a sponge around him and his organization and uh just went through every bit of training, did every bit of reading, uh tried to hang out with them as much as I could, and uh was hoping that I would be I I would start up a chapter of the National Center in Texas. But uh uh but their board decided no, they wanted to stay a center, and but they were their operations manager uh was just very kind. Peter Spokes uh was very kind to give me some paperwork, help me understand what I needed to do to set up a 501c3, and we established Faithful Fathering uh in uh May of 2000. Wow, for years almost now. So we and he brought men into my life to come around to establish that board, and uh we've been on the journey ever since. And uh and and it it's been a blessing. Uh the other thing, my my pastor that uh in parallel to all this, I had a pastor that confronted me and said, uh, uh do you know Jesus? I said, Yeah, I know Jesus. I've been to church every Sunday. He says, That's not what I meant. Do you know Jesus? Well, Pastor, I've been baptized. And he says, That's not what I asked. Have you read his book? And I said, Wait a minute, I just read man-sized books. I don't read big things. And he says, Well, take man-sized pieces, uh bites, and uh so he said, start in Romans, go through Jude, go back to the Gospels, go through Acts, then go back to Genesis and go through Revelation. And I tell you, David, that was one of the uh along with the training and the exposure I got with Dr. Ken Canfield, being grounded in God's word, every morning I got up an extra hour early and just hung out with God in scripture, prayer, meditation. I walked and, you know, that type of thing. And it just started to immerse me in a biblical worldview, pulling me out of the secular worldview that I had been in. So over the years, uh the Lord has granted us tremendous glimpses of God's glory in the churches we work with, because that's really what we do as a ministry, is try to raise the bar for fathering in the churches. There's not a whole lot of encouraging and equipping of dads in the church. In fact, if you go in on church on Father's Day, they're usually chewing the dads out, right? They're not encouraging them. But uh so we've seen tremendous glimpses of God's glory on that journey. But uh but here, as as you know, just a couple of years ago, uh I learned got a new dimension of what uh fathering is all about.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Yeah, so we're gonna get into that. So I I know that you've done well. You know, you and I have known each other for I don't know, maybe five years or so, and uh we took our sons to Christ and the Tetons, which was a fantastic experience, a father-son adventure that Robert Lewis puts together that's out in uh Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Uh we led a class, uh you know, the Betterman curriculum, which he also founded. And we've supported one another over the last several years. And we were breaking bread one day over lunch, and you told me about what you called your COVID curveball. You had had two COVID curveballs, so uh bring the audience in on just what those were, one at one at a

The DNA Email That Introduced A Son

SPEAKER_03 9:48

time.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Okay. They uh first the first was uh it was March twelfth of twenty twenty. Uh I remember that day well because my Jayhawks were number one in the country, and they canceled uh March Madness on the twelfth of March. Uh but uh uh received an email saying possible relation. And uh, you know, uh David, I I was uh sensitive to junk emails. I usually just delete those, but for something I was compelled to open this. And with my bride beside me, I opened it and she uh uh there's a young man out there that had been looking for his father for 23 years. Uh he had uh lined up uh in a in a DNA uh test, I think it was 23andMe or uh Ancestry, I don't know which one it was, I think it's 23andMe uh he had connected with a lot of names uh cousins on my mother's side of the family, and uh and through that had had found the connection to my mother in Kansas City, where he had been born and and put up for adoption in Kansas City, Missouri, actually adopted in Kansas, Missouri. So there's a tie to my mother and there was a tie to my hometown. Right. And then he proceeded to have a tie to my high school with his birth mother. And uh my bride knew that I wasn't a choir boy before we met, and I had been very clear with our kids too, when we went through true love weights and uh uh in the Methodist church, I explained to them that one of my biggest regrets was not being pure for your mother when we were married. You know, that's uh and I pray that that they would have that uh that unique uh relationship. Uh but so I I explained to her that uh you know we I mean I explained to her, she she saw what the deal was and I said, you know, it is a possibility. I said I asked, I responded to the email, I said, Well, if if you'll give me the name of your birth mother, I'll tell you whether we have more to talk about. And uh he did, and we did. Wow. And and I said, But how did you how did you feel in that moment?

SPEAKER_03 11:40

Where I mean I can't imagine, you know, you're just kind of cruising along in your life, and then you get this, oh, I I think you might be my dad.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

You know, I you know, as as we've been in ministry long enough, you uh I just I wonder what the Lord's up to here. I don't know. I don't know. I I mean my my my heart went out to the young man that, you know, in fathering ministry, I know more than how significant a father is, and I just told him I know how s I know how important a dad is. I said uh I'm happy to take a paternity test, and if it's negative, I want to be here for you. Although I'm sure at this age you probably have a lot of father figures in your life. But if it's positive, again, we've got a lot more to talk about. Sure. And so we initiated that process, and about a week later I he called and said, uh, well, Dad, it's 99.9999% likely you're my dad. He responded immediately, he says, Listen, I don't want to spend there I'm a grown man. In fact, he says I'm a grown ass man. Uh he says, uh I don't want to spend every Christmas with you, but I would love to get to know you. And uh I said, I think we're related just by the way you talk. Uh but uh so I uh got on a plane in May of 2020, uh middle of COVID, flew into an empty LAX, and uh came down the escalator and met my son. Wow. And uh he's 46, at that time he was forty-six years old. And uh all you know, if you those familiar with the adoptive world know that genetic mirroring is something they don't have in their adoptive family. So we immediately saw that, the eyes and nose, you know, what have you.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

And uh and then I just spent a weekend with he and his lovely bride of twenty years and his two uh beautiful daughters. Sure. That I get to call granddaughters.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Yeah, what a bonus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Indeed. And uh so they're just lovely. It's a lo I just hung out with them. We had a lot of one-on-one time. Uh we wrapped up the weekend. I just told him, as as you know through Christ and the Tetons, one thing I always do is I told him my tradition is to bless my uh my kids, and if it was okay with him, could I bless him uh as my son? And he gave me the approval.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

And so I know that's a powerful moment from so exactly.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

So in front of his bride and his daughters, I I said, Do you are my son, whom I love with whom I'm well pleased, which you know, there's more to it, as you know, a blessing to draw the parallel to Jesus coming up out of the water with John the Baptist. But uh it was a powerful moment. We hugged and and uh cried a little bit, and uh of course I gave him a faithful father in coin, and uh uh but uh we we uh just had a wonderful, uh wonderful weekends like we'd always known each other.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Wow, incredible. Now what makes yours even more incredible is that you know I've heard people tell stories of you know learning unexpected things when they've done these uh genetic tests, you know, on twenty-three me or ancestry, you know and then you know, those are those are family secrets a lot of times. A lot of times people went to great lengths to keep those secrets. And uh but then you you got a double dose. You know, so the first curveball, how did it lead to the second

A Second Curveball And A Half-Brother

SPEAKER_03 14:43

one?

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Well, in that's uh you're you're right. These secrets, so to speak, there's a lot of generational secrets, and and in the adoptive world, that's where the wounds really are deep because of such secrets. Um uh so uh in the DNA uh when I decided when when he he shared with me, uh Brian is my son, he shared the results of the DNA, and there was a not only was it unique that my mother's side of the family was showing up there, uh, but there was an urban name, and there's another name in there that I needed to research. He said, I don't know why this other name shows up there. And I said, Well, I'll go ahead and take a DNA test just to validate the paternity and see what this is about. And uh sure enough, I validated the paternity and uh and showed that I had a half-brother out there. And uh David, that half brother lives up in Cyprus. And I uh I went up to meet him and I walked into his office and he put a big bear hug on me and said, Brother, we've been looking for you for 25 years.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

So he knew you existed?

SPEAKER_00 15:46

He knew we existed, and I said, I need to hear this story. And when his dad, my biological dad, as it turns out, uh passed in March of 1994, actually two months ahead of my the dad that raised me passed, uh their his mother sat he and his siblings down and told them that uh their dad had had an affair with my mother and that I had a half brother out there calling by the name of Wirtz.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

And that he had a half brother out there by the name of Wertz. And uh and that uh that opened up a a whole new door uh for uh for understanding what was going on because both my mother and the dad that raised me knew that and took the secret to the grave.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

And so this all happened in like in uh like a five-month period of time.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Actually about a month and a half.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

A month and a half.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

I yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

I remember when we had a two COVID curve balls, and boy, those are big curveballs. Uh that could really stir some things up.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

It does, and uh it was interesting because again, uh I have a fabulous relationship. Uh, you know, not only my son and I, they when they see us, or you know, my the beautiful thing is my both of Linda's and my kid, we have grown kids, and my daughter and and son both got married in m 2021. And they both invited uh Brian, their their half brother, to and his bride to their weddings. So they got a double dose of all the genetic mirroring and what have you. And they say just the way he crosses his arms, the way he holds his heads, the way he talks, you know, there's there's just those things were just real. The same thing happened when I went out to dinner with my brother and his bride. His bride just kept looking at me and said, You are George. And I felt like a who's George? George was my dad, my biological dad, yeah, uh, whom I never met. So uh so what I've learned through all of this, uh David, is that the Lord had me in minist have had has had me in ministry for 20 plus years to dad's to minister to me to prepare me for what he was up to. Because the amazing thing through all this is that the Lord gave Linda and I, my bride and I, complete peace uh throughout the journey. There's no uh no that's kind of exceptional.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Those can be some things that can uh you know maybe people don't want.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Well, I I guess I uh you know I've been I never have been a uh uh I've been an open book throughout my life, so I've never tried to put on a front or anything else. So they knew who I they knew I was Well the Lord had prepared you, right? Like you said. That's right. And it's it's uh uh we serve so I I guess where I'm going with that is uh the the Heavenly Father said, Listen, I'm your dad. I'm your dad. Uh the Kendrick Brothers put out a wonderful film called uh uh uh the the Dag Gummett, I've gone blank on the name, but it is it was fireproof? No, it's a f it was uh a father's uh uh know your father. Uh Dag Gummit, I've just gone blank on the name of the film. Anyway, it's Kendrick's Brothers documentary on fathering. You go to Kendrick Brothers and uh it's a documentary on fathering, and they do a wonderful job pointing to the fact that we he is the perfect father, and he uh he gave me that comfort, and and he says all this stuff going on in the world is just shaping you for what I'm doing through you. And I think that's the encouragement to every dad, every man out there, whether you had a great dad or you never knew your dad, or somewhere on the spectrum in between, the Heavenly Father is there to shape you and fill those voids to make you the man he's calling you to be. Amen. Amen to that.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

So so you know, where are you today with these new family members in your life?

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Well, uh Brian does a lot, and my son in California does a lot. Uh he is a uh performer, he this is a fascinating thing. He and my daughter are both performers. Uh, my daughter is a gifted vocalist and chased Broadway for eleven years. Brian, her half brother, uh, is a theater uh major and uh product uh theater production, so he's done a lot of uh uh he's a performer. And uh so he he actually performs uh a couple of plays he put together telling his story uh at different adoption conferences. Yeah, like that blank. The blank is a one-man play, and then at Ghost Kingdom is his screen. He actually filmed a movie because the uh COVID prohib prohibited him from doing a play during COVID time. But uh they both bring out uh the the whole issue. Uh the first one is search for his b birth mother, the second one is search for his father, where he thought he had found his father that he must have died because uh the the situation, you know.

Boundaries, Redemption, And Real Fathering

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Just to back up there a little bit, I I want to explain that in high school uh this young lady and I were uh this is uh is a one uh it might the girl I was dating had gone to prom with another person, so I was upset. And this young lady uh had wanted to double date with a buddy and I, and so we went out and the night just went further than either of us anticipated. Just kids without boundaries, which is part of the issue that we have as dads, is to make sure that we provide those boundaries for our kids. But we were without boundaries, and I went further than either of us thought it would go. And and and here's the result is uh a lot of messed up lives, or you know, uh uh a lot of wounded lives. I can I won't say messed up because the Lord's always using everything. But there's redeemed. Redeemed now. There you go. Uh but the so there there are situations there that uh you know are the lessons that we learn as men is we've got to create boundaries for relationships, uh not only for ourselves, but you know, particularly today with social media and pornography and what have you, those boundaries you have to set them solid, but also for our kids so that they aren't exposed to uh to make life-altering mistakes.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

Well, so if I'm interested in learning more about your organization, Faithful Fathering, uh where do I go to to learn more about it?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

It's faithfulfathering.org. Uh that's uh that's all spelled out, and uh on there you got a for dads page and a for churches page. You know, our ministry is primarily coming beside the church to encourage them and s actually arm them with a strategy and materials to raise the bar for fathering in the church. But then we also uh through our website have access to our podcasts or YouTube channels and everything that provide a plethora of uh short video tips and uh and training. Uh, all of our training is available on our website, video uh recorded, and uh and they can download the PDF. Everything is you know, we charge for nothing in ministry. We live off of donations from folks that have been touched by the ministry.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

Right. Well it it's called uh Faithful Fathering, and the title of this show, if you're listening to Wrestling with the Inner Man, is you know, In Search of a Father. And that's the name of this three-part podcast series that I really want to uh endorse again because his son, Brian, is is uh he he's a good storyteller because he's a stage actor, and the way he relates this in this three-part series he did on his search is is just a fantastic story. So anybody that's adopted or uh knows somebody that's adopted who's has that kind of gnawing question, you know, about why you know their birth parents didn't want them, I think it's a fantastic story. So I really want to highly endorse that. So, Rick, final

Final Counsel And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_03 22:46

words. Uh what advice do you have for the resting with the Interman audience?

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Well, I just uh get to know your Heavenly Father. That's uh read his book. And uh particularly I always say start with Romans and read through Jude and just spend that time. Uh don't it didn't it is not a speed read. Just get to know the Heavenly Father, and he'll get you in in sync with uh your earthly father or father figures that have reached out to be an influence in your life.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

Yeah. Well, look, there's two people here at the studio and and the radio station Salem who are good friends that might have been part of this ministry, and it's uh Brian Runge, and he lost his father, Leo E. Rungi, on January twenty-sixth in Ames, Iowa, and Rick Hiller, my producer, who lost his father, Richard A. Hiller, on January 31st, uh in Reading, Pennsylvania. And so I just want to do a shout out to those two guys, because those dads, they're no longer with us today, you know, but they did a great job of raising those two men who are have been great part of this ministry, and uh I know they're missing them, but we all always have you know that Heavenly Father, and that's where we have to turn first, because sometimes your dad dies uh at a very early age. So let's just close out in a little prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, I just thank you for Rick Wirts and for this testimony and this faithful fathering ministry and how he's received uh his COVID curve balls, and you know that's all worked out so well for his family. And just uh be with everyone who's out there kind of wondering about their worthiness of being loved. They uh they don't know the circumstances, and uh you love all of us, and let's just all turn to you first. And Lord, we really need every father to step up today, especially in this peculiar time that we live in in this nation, in this world, and we just ask you to be with all of them so they can be the fathers that you intended us to be, with you as their model in Christ's name, amen.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Given them heaven.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Thanks for listening to Wrestling with the Internet with David Savage. We believe the winners in this ring courageously follow God's work, love, and protect God's women, excel at God's work, and betters God's will for this children. For information, reach out to David at David at thesavagepath.com. That's david at thestavagepath.com or visit his website at thesavagepath.com. Tune in next time as Wrestling with the Internet tackles more tough topics to train up a generation of better men.