Home is where the heart is for Old Town adoptive family

December 14, 2006
By Greta Sproul

 Looking at healthy, laughing, 11 year-old Rachel and Noah Swedberg of Old Town, it’s impossible to tell that they started out life as societal outcasts in the West African republic of Sierra Leone. In a country where the average life expectancy is 38 years for men and 42 years for women, the very fact that they came into the world as twins counted as a monumental strike against them. That’s why Cheryl Swedberg, their adoptive mother, is convinced that God must have had a hand in allowing them to survive.

“In Sierra Leone, and in some other parts of Africa, twins are considered evil, and they’re killed,” she says. “That’s how we lost another set of twins we tried to adopt before. They were killed.”

Fortunately for Rachel and Noah, they were spared that fate, but their early years were filled with other difficulties that were just as threatening. Shortly after they were placed in an English-speaking orphanage in Sierra Leone’s capital city of Freetown, civil war broke out and rebels attacked the facility. The director of the orphanage, whom the Swedbergs refer to as “Henry”, escaped with the twins into the surrounding jungle where they spent the next several days without water or food. Sharing the few details she has been able to gather of her children’s stay in the jungle, Cheryl Svedberg has to pause to force back tears.

“When we first got the twins, Noah told us how they had to go to the jungle,” she recalls. “He told us, “A big kitty came over to me and kissed me.’ But Henry explained to us that it was actually a lion that came over and lay down next to him, licking him and taking care of him until it was safe to go back to the orphanage.”

The idea of a lion mothering her son in the jungle keeps the tears glistening in Swedberg’s eyes, but the recounting of the story prompts an exchange of sheepish looks between the twins. Leaning in toward her brother, Rachel says in a teasing voice, “A big kitty kissed you!” before miming a kiss in his direction.

“They don’t really remember it now,” Swedberg says, smiling at them. “They just remember bits and pieces.”

Among the many things that the twins don’t remember about their arrival in the United States at the tender age of two is how frightened they were of sounds considered commonplace by those of us who didn’t grow up in countries ravaged by civil war.

“They were terrified of the sound of toilets flushing,” Swedberg says.“Whenever a plane flew overhead, they would lie down on the floor and cover their ears because they associated it with bombing. And they couldn’t sleep in beds. For the first few months after the twins got here, my husband and I had to sleep on the floor with them.”

The twins weren’t exactly big eaters, either, due to their near-starvation diet while still in Sierra Leone. For that reason, Swedberg says, she and her husband, Roger had to feed them tiny amounts of rice in order to get them used to eating on a regular basis.

Now, of course, the twins choose their meals from the same hearty menu as most other local pre-teens, and the idea of diving to the floor at the sound of planes overhead is as distant as the country in which they were born.  In fact, Rachel and Noah are so completely at home in their adopted country and home, it’s hard to imagine them as anything but the two middle children in the Swedberg’s smiling brood of ten adopted children.

That’s right---Rachel and Noah are only two of six children that the Swedbergs have adopted in the last twelve years. An older adopted sister and a biological son have already grown up and moved out on their own, but the Swedbergs are still hard at work parenting the latest and youngest members of their ever evolving family.

Ethan, the oldest child still living at home, is a gregarious twelve years-old who, despite being home-schooled, seems to have an inherent knack for those small social touches that put a visitor to the home at ease. Greeting a visitor to the home, he extends his hand in a gentlemanly fashion. Asked if he would like to offer some opinions on the family’s domestic situation, he smiles warmly as he crosses one foot over his knee, settles back on the couch, and replies, “Yes, I would.” As resident big brother to five younger siblings, he is quick to point out the responsibilities that go with the position.

“Whenever Pop is trying to read the Bible at night, I have to tell everyone to quiet down,” he explains. “And Noah is scared of ghosts so I’m the one who has to turn out the bedroom light at night.”

Ethan also points out that, with so many other adopted Swedbergs around, there is never a shortage of kids to play with, to eat lunch with, to play video games with, or just to hang out with whenever the familial mood strikes.

“I think having a big family is cool,” he concludes.

Like his younger siblings, which also include Hannah, six, Abigail, two, and Benjamin, one and a half, Ethan had a less than auspicious entrance into the world. When he was first born in Florida, his biological mother’s drug problems resulted in a dangerously low birth weight for the newborn as well as other problems that might have frightened off most adoptive parents.

“When Ethan was four months old, he only weighed seven pounds,” Swedberg says. “He had problems with his heart and with breathing. They told us that he would never walk or talk. But I just felt somehow that he would.”

Ethan’s little sisters, Hannah and Abigail, and baby brother, Benjamin, also come from Florida, but their adoptions were relatively smooth affairs, Swedberg says. In fact, she adds, despite some concerns she has always had about meeting her children’s birth mothers, “her heart softened” after meeting Hannah’s biological mother. As a result of that meeting, she and her husband have promised to keep in touch with the woman through the adoption agency that helped her find Hannah.

Along with parenting their adopted brood, the Swedbergs are a host family to two foreign exchange students, one from Indonesia and another from Thailand. Their living room is decorated not only with framed photographs of their immediate family, there are pictures of the foreign exchange students that have lived with them in the past.

For some families, adoptive or biological, the responsibilities and stress of everyday life can turn family activities into more of a burden than a pleasure. But for the Swedbergs, the best part about being a family is the time they spend together, especially around the supper table or during their nightly Bible devotions.

“There is no jealousy in this house,” Swedberg says. “There are so many kids, it all just flows. They all blend right in. I’ve asked Ethan how he feels about another brother or sister, and he said, ‘Okay.’ Our attitude is the more the merrier. Each new child is a new experience for us. I honestly feel that God put me here to do this, to be the mother of my children, and to teach others not to judge by what they see on the outside of a person. They have to look into the heart.”