Bislama Bible Commentary Project: Vanuatu

December 22, 2007

By Rosemary Williamson, missionary with Australian Presbyterian Church in Vanuatu. Posted 22 Dec 2007

A team including Ps Sophia Silas from Malekula in Vanuatu and Dr Andrew and Rosemary Williamson, Missionaries with the Australian Presbyterian Church, has this year been working to prepare commentaries on Philemon, Philippians, Mark and Colossians. The idea has been to produce some sample commentaries in Bislama which can serve as models for the writers who start work next year. As we work on them we gain an idea of what style
guide questions will arise, and what particular issues writers may face.

Ps Sophia Silas
with Andrew and Rosemary Williamson.

Early October we printed a trial run of draft copy commentaries on Philemon and Philippians. These sold well at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu, which also officially endorsed the project. We are hoping for some feedback from this initial run. The idea of the run is to raise awareness of and interest in the project, and to show that we mean business.

Scripture Union Vanuatu has agreed to issue the final publications under their name. This is a good partnership as Scripture Union is well respected in Vanuatu as an inter-denominational, gospel-centred, relevant organisation.

Plans are underway to hold a Bislama Writers’ Workshop January 28-30 2008 for a selected group of pastors and a bishop who are interested in writing commentaries, individually or with a group, in Bislama. Few people in Vanuatu have much confidence about writing in Bislama, even though it is the language most people use for everyday communication outside of their own home villages, where they speak one of over a hundred local Vanuatu languages. One of the aims of the Bislama Writers’ Workshop is to help people overcome their reticence to write in Bislama, by showing them the conventions currently in use for writing in the language.

We expect to introduce the participants to writing standard Bislama, with particular emphasis on avoiding English structures which do not communicate for people who have not had much education. We will also discuss how to go about writing a commentary — which again is not something people are familiar with and how to make the writing appropriate for people in Vanuatu. We will introduce the process of producing a commentary as well as the process to allow small groups to work together under a team leader to produce a commentary.

The workshop will take place at Talua Ministry Training Centre, which is an institution for training lay and ordained gospel workers for Vanuatu from various denominations. The Principal, Ps Fiama Rakau, is 100% behind this project, and has made time available for us to meet so that the lecturing staff can attend if they wish. Talua will provide sleeping accommodation for the
participants, but we will need some help with transport costs, as inter-island travel in Vanuatu is relatively expensive, and some money for food costs. Most pastors have a putative salary that is never realised.

Talua Ministry Training Centre.

The Next Step

In May 2008, we plan to hold a Commentary Writing Workshop for two weeks at Talua which is on the island of Santo. In preparation for the workshop, individuals will have spent several months in studying their texts, reading commentaries that we make available to them, and preaching those texts. The workshop time will be spent producing the commentary: discussing what should and should not go in the commentary; actual writing; critique of that writing; and further research in the Talua library as required. Some writers will be working on their own, and others will work together on the same commentary under a commentary team leader.

Since Talua has the best theological library in the country, the Commentary Writing Workshop will be held there. The two-week workshop will probably not see the completion of those particular commentaries, but they will move them forward, help participants find the most useful resources, and give the commentary team leaders the main materials they need to finish the commentary whether personally or through further direction of group members at a distance.

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