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Restorative Justice: Medina man's journey to self-healing and paying it forward

Richard Swiger has dedicated his life to faith, forgiveness, and healing.

MEDINA, Ohio — Sometimes, to find inner peace, you have to appreciate your surroundings, find reasons to smile, and embrace the commotion.

It's something 52-year-old Richard Swiger lives by every day. He lives on a 5 1/2-acre property in Medina, rich with farm animals, produce, and forest.

"We have chicken eggs and duck eggs," Richard said as he showed us his farm. "You want to see something neat? Look at this right here."

With that, he pointed to a path that led down to his family's woods. It's no coincidence; it's where he often goes to reflect on his past. He knows healing is a lifelong journey.

"The home environment that we lived in was abusive, in that we were neglected a lot," Richard shared of his upbringing. "I had a sister who died from neglect and abuse as a result of my father not being present — running around womanizing and carrying on and drinking — and my mother doing her own thing, whatever that was."

Richard and his siblings moved from state to state, shuffling around from foster home to foster home. At 16, his father was murdered in an arson fire. 

"We were very needy children because we, you know, were trying to compensate for lack of love and lack of attention," he said. "It was like a lot of demand."

So many times over the years, he'd call on God to save him.

"He was talking to me and my broken need, and I'm like, 'Wow, this is for me,'" he shared. "'This is ... that's for me!'"

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Yet the pain of Richard's childhood was too difficult to move past.

"In 1996, I walked into a convenience store in southern Ohio, strung out on pills," he recalled. "I was strung out on cocaine, and I told the clerk to give me all the money in the register."

Years of a toxic pattern would follow: more crime, more prison, more pain.

After a five-year prison stint, Richard landed himself right back behind bars, this time a nine-year term. He felt hopeless.

"I'm in the Medina County Jail," he remembered. "The chaplains were Susan and Larry Jarvis."

The two would sit and talk to him for hours. They never judged him; they just listened. It's something he never had.

"That's where the healing really began," Swiger said, "when somebody just stopped, took time out of their day, and listened to the voice of a broken kid inside me."

One day, during one of their chats, fate walked right through the door.

"I was sitting in Sue's office and this girl came in. Sue said to me, 'That's my daughter, Debbie. She doesn't have a boyfriend,'" Richard told us. "And I'm thinking, 'Why are you telling me this? You know, it's not like I'm an eligible bachelor here.'"

The answer was simple: forgiveness.

"She began to support me through my sentence, and she became my best friend," Richard said of Debbie.

The friendship grew with each passing year — nine whole years of writing letters, prison visits, and a love he'd never felt before.

"I began to read my Bible and make some significant commitments, so that I could be the man that Debbie deserved," Richard said.

He made commitments like earning a college degree. In 2011, Richard was released from prison. He promptly married Debbie, and they had three kids.

Credit: Richard Swiger

While walking on his property, we asked if it was possible to describe his gratitude for the life he lives with his wife and children.

"I mean, you know, no," he said with a chuckle. "I'll never be able to fully repay her for that. The only thing I can do is just love."

Richard is honoring his commitment to love. In fact, he's spreading it, and paying it forward by teaching classes at Grafton Correctional Institution.

"I am not who I was, but I am on my way to a better me, a stronger me, or restored me," The class echoed back to Richard at Grafton one afternoon. "A whole new me!"

It's part of the Prison Fellowship Academy, a program Richard joined back in 2017. It's the nation's largest Christian nonprofit serving prisoners. 

"How can you contemplate change and then start working toward the action of change if you don't even realize it's there?" Richard asked his class.

What he's doing is saving lives, in the very place where he served time.

"I can see a cell I lived in from my desk," Richard said. "I'm trying to bring the same message to them: That you don't have to be defined by your number. You don't have to be the mistakes that you made yesterday; you can begin to live a new today and have a better tomorrow."

The thing about finding inner peace? There's not always an end game. Rather, a beauty in moments where you can look back on just how far you've come.

Editor's Note: The following video is from a previous, unrelated report.

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