He Grew Up Feeling Unwanted. After 55 Years, He Finally Met the Father He Prayed For

August 17, 2026

For 19 years, Joshua Schneeloch grew up in a German Catholic orphanage wondering why no one had come to take him home.

Decades later, a simple DNA test finally led him to the father he had prayed his whole life to meet, and to a family ready to welcome him with open arms.

Joshua Schneeloch and Arthur Colbert /  KLTV 7

Joshua was raised in Germany and was never adopted. As other children left the orphanage with their new families, he couldn't help but wonder when his own turn would come.

“When you see other kids be picked up by parents, you start realizing: Hey, why is nobody picking me up?” he said.

Every day, Joshua prayed with his rosary, asking for one thing.

“Please. One day, I want to meet my father.”

More than five decades after his childhood, that prayer finally began to come true.

About a year ago, Joshua's wife, Nicole Pavelka, gave him an Ancestry DNA kit. She knew the search could bring difficult emotions, but she also knew Joshua deserved to know where he came from.

“I knew that he has a family. Two kids and myself, right? He belongs,” Pavelka said.

With help from a genealogy professional, the search began. A few cousins were discovered, and then came the phone call Joshua had spent his life waiting for.

“One day she called me and said, ‘I think I found your father,’” Joshua recalled.

His biological father, Arthur Colbert, had served in the military and was stationed in Europe in the late 1960s. He had no idea that he had fathered a child in Germany.

“I did not know that I had left a baby over there in Germany when I was transferred back to the United States,” Arthur said. “If I had known that I would’ve brought him back to the United States with me!”

Joshua decided to contact the man he believed could be his father, but he didn't reveal his identity right away. During the conversation, Arthur mentioned that he had been in Germany in 1969 and 1970, including Kaiserslautern.

Joshua suddenly realized he was talking to the man he had spent his entire life searching for.

“And I stopped talking. Because I just spoke with my father,” Joshua said.

A DNA test followed, and the results were nearly certain.

“The laboratory called: this is your dad by 99.99%!” Joshua said. “And it was like...wow!”

When Joshua and Arthur finally met in person, both were overcome with emotion.

“Walking towards my dad was probably the longest walk I’ve ever done in my life,” Joshua said.

“We met each other and both shed tears!” Arthur said.

Then Joshua gave his father something incredibly meaningful: the rosary he had held onto throughout the years while praying to one day meet him.

“Putting my rosary around his neck, the rosary from every time I prayed...he has it now,” Joshua said.

But the reunion didn't stop with his father.

On Saturday in Jefferson, Texas, Joshua walked into a room filled with more than 60 relatives who were meeting him for the first time. After spending his childhood wondering what it felt like to belong, he was suddenly surrounded by people who wanted him there.

“I’m overwhelmed for how much they welcomed me,” he said.

For Joshua, that welcome meant more than words can express. Growing up without knowing why he wasn't chosen had left him carrying a question that many children in his situation face.

“The biggest fear you have as an orphan is to be pushed away,” he said. “Why am I not loved? Why am I not home? Why am I not being picked up? What’s going on? What did I do wrong?”

Then, after 55 years, he finally received the answer he had been waiting for.

He was loved. And he was home.

“That’s the biggest gift you can get. To be loved.”