E. Neil Culbertson  Pastor Faith Presbyterian Reformed Church of Guam Fr. Duenas Road, Tai Mangilao, GU  P.O. Box 338,  Hagåtña, GU  96932 Office: 472-8423

Neil Culbertson was listening to Rlene"Live" on K57  from 12-1 p.m. (April 23, 2003) when in-studio-guests  Clarence L. Thomas IV, Josephine Chargualaf Varley  and Bethany Martin were discussing the Guam-   Micronesia Mission's (GMM) republication project of  the 1908 Francis Marion Price Chamorro translation  of the Bible. It's technically referred to as a portion,  since only six of the 66 books of the bible were  translated by Price. The discussion also centered on  the Special Edition of the Isles Magazine, published  by GMM. The Spring 2003 edition of Isles will  feature  an in-depth history of the discovery of the  Chamorro Bible, its history and those who played a  big part in its translation and publication.

Culbertson paid attention to the discussion because  he had some background and familiarity with the  Chamorro Bible. He called the show and informed us  that he has several Chamorro Bibles which were given to him when one of his ministerial members was leaving the island a few years back. He told us on the phone that he thought he may have several copies, but he'd have to find the box they are in before he can say exactly what he does have.

Culbertson said he wasn't sure if the copy he has is the same as the bible my guests were talking about but he had Chamorro bibles in a box somewhere and was willing to meet with us later to identify his collection. He gave his contact numbers and I assured him we'd be calling within hours. We made arrangements to meet the next day at the Guam-Micronesia Mission (GMM) of Seventh-day Adventist building in Agaña Heights.

At that meeting, we were joined by Clarence L. Thomas IV and Bill Taitague, now pastor of the Talofofo Seventh-day Adventist Church. The discussion started with how Culbertson acquired the Chamorro Bible.

"One of our ministerial members was Miguel Taitano   of the Agaña Heights Baptist Church, right next door... and when Miguel was moving off-island with his wife and relocating for retirement, he came to the ministry one day with a box full of these and said ah, 'Anybody interested?' I said, 'Sure, and I... I apparently didn't take enough home." He chuckled. "I just took these two." He said, pointing to two 1951 republication bibles on the table in front of him."

Shortly after the formation of the American Bible Society, Neil Culbertson was invited by Howard and Lorraine Hatton in the mid 80s to serve as President of the Bible Society of Micronesia. It was an experimental effort to see if they could sustain a local chapter here on Guam. Culbertson had a small role in bible translations.

The American Bible Society supervised and worked closely with translators of different translation projects in Micronesia, but did little to advance the translation of a Bible into the Chamorro language. "I'd like to stress that it was corporate responsibility, decisions were made on the basis of population size in the region; Guam, Micronesia, taking into account the Chamorro speaking world. "No excuse, not at all," says Culbertson. "But when you are looking for people who will finance it, we weren't finding a lot of takers."

Smaller populated islands in Micronesia faired better according to Culbertson, "They came through with financing of bible translations in their languages. The Bible Society subsidizes all the translations projects heavily, nobody, people group, ever pays the full translation or the full production costs." Said Culbertson pointing out, "We set artificially low prices for the bible allowing someone to buy a complete bible for several dollars or so, when actual production costs would have exceeded $15 - $25 dollars a volume."
 

The production of bibles is not a profit making venture. "The slogan of the Bible Society was always, 'A Bible in the language of the people in a price they can afford.'" said Culbertson.  But the gap for Guam was left open. The Society entered into discussions with the Catholic Church regarding the translation of the Bible into the Chamorro language, and by the time Culbertson's term as president ended, he was under the impression that monsignor Tomas A. Camacho in Saipan was working, albeit, "Very slowly," said he said, "On translating a bible into the Chamorro language, and that something would be coming," said Culbertson.

"When we were working on these projects, the Bible Society was based out of Hong Kong and everything was routed through there. In these intervening years and downsizing, everything has been moved to Australia. So, there's been big corporation shifts and restructuring and all kinds of things get lost when that happened," says Culbertson.

Culbertson said the Bible Society usually moves into an area by invitation, "People locally  express interest and they usually form and look at the church groups; Protestant and Catholics in the area and work cooperatively with a combined team in favor of kind of an ecumenical parity, so that everybody is insured they'll have the widest readership. They won't exclude someone so they will support the translation and publication of bibles. They also try to identify church leaders who are suitable for translation work. Sometimes at the expense of the Society, train them in biblical languages so they have an understanding of deeper language of the bible, as well as their own."

Bishop Tomas A. Camacho's translation of the Bible book of Mateo was reviewed by the Bible Society of Micronesia. His other translations of the book of Marcos, Lucas and Juan were published without review or approval for its orthography.

Culbertson discussed the role of translations consultants after the foundation for translating is laid, and translators are prepared and accomplish their perspective tasks saying, "Translation consultants from the Bible Society get involved to  examine a standardize linguistic checks to make sure that it's a quality translation."

On the Chamorro project, Culbertson said, "A woman, Peggy Yao, came from the Philippines and conducted a demographic study on readership interest of the translation of the Bible into the Chamorro language; to further gauge the interest for a translation of a Chamorro Bible. As far as I know, we were proceeding through Bishop Camacho to do the translation." At that point, Culbertson moved on to other tasks assigned to him as pastor of the Faith Presbyterian Reformed Church of Guam.

Culbertson concentrated on the promotion of bible reading in the islands. "Among many of the projects we did, we promoted an annual bible walk through parochial and Christian private schools and public schools where they allowed a voluntary contest. We also promoted bible essay contests, on various themes; Why the Bible is important to me, and one year at Sagan Dinaña (place to mix or gather) we had a big awards ceremony for all the winners in various age groups all the way up to high school. Prices included items like, "A $65 leather bound study bible to first place winners. Just a lot of neat things."

At this time, Culbertson says he is not aware of the existence of a Bible Society of Micronesia. "It didn't make it financially to keep an open chapter. Even in that didn't meet with sufficient financial support from the large community here; the mixed language community. Its offices were closed, shut down, and Faith Book Store became kind of the unofficial distributor for their products. You can still find them there," said Culbertson.

E. Neil Culbertson and his missionary colleagues who operate and manage the Faith Book Store are sent out by the same mission, the Christian Reformed World Mission, from the Christian Reform Church in North America. He is the pastor of the Faith Presbyterian Reformed Church of Guam, president of the Guam running club and over the years, served on the Guam Ministerial Association.