Day Forty-Five - Email in my Inbox

November 12, 2003 - Letter sent to Jack via ASIJ

Nine days after I sent the letter to Jack via ASIJ, I received an email in my mailbox. Since I didn't know how the response would come, or even if I would get a response, you can imagine the fear, anticipation, and apprehension I experienced while I stared at my inbox seeing a return address with his name on it. I didn't know what to expect. Sort of what you might be feeling right now.

Following is the email I received on Friday, November 21, 2003, one week before Thanksgiving.

Dear Janet,

Your letter arrived via the American School today. I have been more or less expecting it ever since 2000, and I suspected that you might be the one who had contacted ASIJ.j

I do take responsibility and I have, since the early 1980's taken responsibility for my inexcusable actions of the 1970's. I deeply, sorrowfully and shamefully apologize to you. You said that you often wonder if I even remember you. I remember with immense grief those trip with you steering the car while sitting on my lap. I remember you because, as in the cases of my other improper behavior, I really liked you. I was a very, very, very messed up, psychologically disturbed individual.....for a rather lengthy period after my divorce and mother's death.

In 1984, and again in 1985, I attempted to kill myself, nearly succeeding in 1985, after which I spent a period of time in a mental hospital in Santa Barbara. After I was released from the hospital, I sought help from a psychologist in Santa Barbara for a couple of months. I received considerable help from him, especially concerning my own self-image, which was an important first step in solving my problem with improper relationships with kids I especially liked.

I live alone, still working with the ASIJ Miyake program (but, as any and all participants will confirm, living in a totally separate house and not interacting with the kids by myself.)

My problem with kids was under control, but my loneliness was not. I married in 1987 to a wonderful Philippine woman from severe poverty. We have now been married 17 years. We have two precious children, and I am living a normal life, totally lacking any indecent interactions with children for more than 20 years. It is a terrible thing of my past.

You have told me that you have been in contact with several women who were abused by me. I would very much like to contact them and apologize for any misconduct I was engaged in. I have contacted two women myself.... since 2000.... and apologized. I have sought help and I am confident that I am of absolutely no danger to any child or anyone else.

Your information about me currently, "working with children", is only partly accurate. I am a consultant, administrator and adviser to ocean environmental programs that work with children. I often give lectures at schools and other children ocean education groups, but I do not live with the children or interact with the children by myself. The so called, "Mr. J Ocean Schools" use my name, and include people from age 60 to elementary school. My summer schools are run by a staff of good teachers, and I do not take part in the teaching except as I said, to lecture about the ocean. I do not even know the kids names or remember their faces. And I live in totally different accommodations.... not with the kids, as in the old ASIJ program.

I have only a limited fixed income and this current address in an NPO where I serve as president ( a non-profit organization with nothing to do with kids. ) I need my schools for the survival of my family. I live alone at the edge of poverty in Japan and send all the money I can earn to my wife to help build a future for her and our children. Her house and property have been largely completed with loans, and I am currently more than $40,000 in debt. I never had any desire to "make a living" in the Philippines, so everything is in my wife's name.

If I give up my work, if I go to jail, if I even am accused publicly of the crimes I committed in the 1970's, it is my wife and children who will suffer the most. My wife will be held responsible for the loans and could go to jail herself..... but it isn't her fault. I agreed to pay her loans to help her build the rest her life after I die. She and my kids need me now. I am certainly not happy, living alone, giving lectures on the ocean environment, and not even having enough money to enjoy and evening out. I don't want your pity. I want your understanding.

I made serious mistakes in the 1970's, since then I have been trying to live a life that people respect, and people in Japan do, in fact, respect me. Please, Janet, understand that I have dealt with the problem, and to a large extent, succeeded. Let me go on supporting my family through my education programs. I swear that no child is in any danger from me!

I request your help. I want to know how to contact the women you mentioned. I will sincerely and deeply apologize to them for my past behavior. But, believe me, Janet, please, please believe me. That is in my past. I am still living with it, and since the discussion with two ASIJ administrators in 2000, I have suffered again, deeply. Since April, I have been seeing a psychologist here in Japan, and it has helped...but I feel great guilt and shame for my behavior during the 1970's.

Concerning your request that I come forward and seek help.... I have and am currently undergoing help, and will continue to do so. I do not have a problem with pedophilia at this stage of my life. I have a problem with who I am...my own self image...and with guilt over what I did in the 1970's. Secondly, I will contact everybody I can contact who has had an improper relationship with me and apologize....sincerely, I would appreciate your help by supplying addresses, etc. I will send you copies of the letters.

But, I beg you to allow me to continue my educational work. I swear in front of Jesus that I do not have direct contact alone with kids and am absolutely no threat to anyone. Also, I swear again in from of Jesus that, through many years of grief and guilt, with the help of three different psychologists (two in California, one in Japan), I have come to understand the problem I had and to defeat it. But, I need the education work to save my wife and family. She is the one legally responsible for the loans in the Philippines, but she has no education, no income and in no way can pay the debts. I need the work to get my family safe and sound before I die (and I am 74, so I am running out of time.) Please trust me.

You asked me to receive help to stop abusing children. I have not done anything improper with a child in more than 20 years, and I deeply regret what I did do, during a terrible psychologically disturbed period of my life.

Please forgive me, Janet, but please allow me to continue my work. I am never alone with kids, like I was in the 1970's, and I have no desire to be alone with them. I am mentally OK, in that respect, now. My problems now are to come to terms with myself and, as you suggest, with the people to whom I have caused suffering. I ask your help and understanding.

I will be going to the Philippines to spend Christmas with my family, leaving here on December 11th and returning on December 30th. I beg you to trust me and recognize that I am no longer a threat to anybody. Please allow me to continue my work, or I cannot support my family. What I did in the past is not their fault. Please let me continue to make a living. No children are in any danger whatsoever from me at this stage of my life, and none have been since the 1970's.

Please send me the list of people whom you mentioned. I will send you copies of the letters I write to them. You can contact me here at this e-mail, but other people have access to this computer. My home address is: _________________________ My telephone number is _______________, but I hate my life alone in that six mat room, so I am only home late at night. I stay in this office when I am not giving lectures. My schools are limited to the warm season...many of them are government organized and run. Janet.....please let me continue those schools....for the sake of my wife and kids. I am certainly not happy with my life as it is now, but I cannot let my family fall into poverty in the Philippines, Please Janet!!

Your letter was necessary, and I thank you for it. It is necessary to deal with this problem once and for all.

With my sincere apologies!

OWS Jack Moyer