Crumpets and The Promised Kingdom

Outside the laundry is flapping on the line in the hot sun. Inside we are absently listening to Sufjan Stevens’ All The Delighted People EP and contemplating crumpets.

We're some way into a whirlwind tour of the history of God's people via the Bible with Vaughan Roberts as tour guide, and are fancying a bit more of a linger around all this fantastic stuff than God's Big Picture requires. More reaching out and touching and sniffing, and even tasting.

Not quite proper questions, just a few notes from lingering, somewhat gobsmacked, in The Promised Kingdom chapter.

Genesis 11:10-30 - Trace the bloodline of Abram.
Shem - [Flood](+ 2 years) Arpachshad (+ 35 years) - Shelah (+ 30 years) - Eber (34 years) - [Earth divided] Peleg (+30 years) - Reu (+32 years) - Serug (+30 years) - Nahor (+29 years) - Terah (+70 years) – Abram

Genesis 11:30 - What is the abrupt conclusion of the genealogy of Abram?
Stops at the barrenness of Sarai, Abram's wife. Oh noes! Bloodline ends here…

Terah took Abram, Sarai and Lot and moved from Ur of the Chaldeans to Haran and settled there. Ur and Haran were known as centres for the worship of the moon god (ironically called “Sin”). The descendants of Shem had no qualms about worshipping Sin (see Joshua 24:2).

So why did God call Abram and give him these wonderful promises?
No meritorious reason. Abram was not looking for God and certainly wasn’t worshipping him or pleasing him in any sense to deserve God’s promises. Totally God’s sovereign and gracious initiative in calling and promising.

Genesis 12:1-7 - What did God promise Abram?
- loads of descendants
- a great name
- blessing for Abram and through him, blessing for the whole world!

Sarai is unable to fulfil the creational mandate of multiplying and filling the earth. Yet, God will give them descendants enough to be a great nation.

The people at Babel tried to make a name for themselves (Genesis 11:4). But here, God will make a great name for Abram.

The Babelites were fearful of being scattered and tried to unite themselves independently of God. But here, God promises universal blessing through one man.

- the whole land of Canaan for his offspring

What obstacles seem to stand in the way of the fulfilment of these promises?
Problems in the descendants department. Plus other people are occupying the land.

Genesis 12:4-9 – How did Abram demonstrate that he believed God?
He obeyed him. He called on the name of the LORD.

Genesis 12:10-20 – How did Abram demonstrate that he believed God?
He didn’t.

What did God do to show his faithfulness despite Abram’s lack of faith
He cursed those who dishonoured Abram even though it was Abram who was deceitful! (cf 12:3).

Genesis 13:14-18 – How did God react to Abram’s patent lack of faith?
Reiterated his promises of offspring (like dust) and land.

Why does God do this? Why not just abandon Abram?
Because he promised and he is faithful.

Genesis 15 – After quite a bit of excitement, Abram is still childless and landless and questions God, asking for confirmation. Basically, “you say, I say, who confirm?” Instead of striking him dead for his unbelief, what does God do?
Reiterates his promise of offspring (like stars) and land.

And in fact, intensifies the promise by making a covenant with Abram. (Most commentators take this as a self-maledictory promise – that if God did not keep his promises, he would himself be torn apart like the animals. Not entirely convinced but regardless, this ratified covenant emphasises yet again, God’s commitment to his promises and therefore his faithfulness and trustworthiness.)

(Also, God counts Abram’s somewhat dodgy belief towards him as righteousness, even though it falters in the next chapter.)

Genesis 16 - How does Abram demonstrate his trust in God and his word?
He doesn’t. Sarai is still childless and Abram decides that if God wasn’t going to do anything about it, he would. He was 75 years old when God gave the promise first and is now 86.

Moreover, he “listened to the voice of Sarai” (cf Genesis 3:17).

Genesis 17 – God’s reply comes 13 years later when Abram is 99 years old. What’s so amazing about God the Almighty’s (El Shaddai’s) response?
Not only does he not do away with Abram, he reaffirms the promise, and not just that but also expands on it.

- people
Fruitfulness – cf Genesis 1:28 how humans were to exercise dominion over the earth on God’s behalf. Re-establishment of creation mandate?

Seems that the covenant with Abram and his offspring, the everlasting covenant, will reverse effects of the Fall.

- place (17:8a)

- under God’s rule (17:8b)

God gives Abram the mark of circumcision as a sign to them of this covenant (17:9-14).

Abram and Sarai’s names to reflect the certain fulfilment of the promise (17:5,15).

God also makes a specific promise that the covenant shall be with a son from Sarah – a son he will give her supernaturally, rather than Ishmael, the son that Abram made to force the fulfilment of the promise (17:19).

[On a side note, the promises given to Ishmael are interesting, especially since Arabs and their Muslim brothers consider themselves to be from the line of Abraham via Ishmael. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_view_of_Ishmael. And here’s a compelling documentary “Behind Enemy Lines” by Norwegian journalist Paul Refsdal on the Taliban/Mujahideen in Afghanistan, shown on SBS Australia in August 2010. One of their brothers in arms possibly killed Karen Woo and the rest of her medical aid mission team, apparently mistaking them for Christian missionaries.]

However, inclusion into the covenant is not automatic. What must Abraham and his male offspring and household members do to be included in the covenant?
Be circumcised. Circumcision would distinguish those who believed that God would fulfil the divine promises to Abraham from those who did not.

Again, however, it seems that all these people did not need to do any other work than trust that God would deliver on his promise if they trusted him!

God does not change and neither do post-Fall humans. Several centuries later, this act of faith became any but! See Galatians 3. The Galatian Christians were being led astray by false teaching that suggested that it is not enough to believe in Christ but that they also need to fulfil Jewish law (including circumcision) to be right with God.

Galatians 3:6 - How did Abraham receive the promises?
By faith.

How do we non-Jews inherit the promises then?
- promises given to Christ (Galatians 3:16)
- those who believe are given the promise in Christ (Galatians 3:22) because they are one in Christ so therefore Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:28-29)

Paul seems to be contradicting the Abrahamic covenant, saying that it’s not that you’ll be cut off from God’s people if you don’t circumcise yourself; rather you will be severed from Christ if you seek to be justified by your own deeds, eg, circumcision. How does Paul show, by argument from Abraham, that righteousness has always been by faith and not by obedience to the law?
- the promise was made 430 years before the law was given (Galatians 3:15-18)
- no one could keep the law so the law could never have given life, in fact, the law was given so that the promise by faith could be given to those who believe (Galatians 3:22).

In what way was the gospel preached to Abraham?
The gospel is God’s promise to Abraham that through his offspring all nations will be blessed.

Why are those who have faith in Christ Abraham's true children, and therefore inheritors of the blessing?

Galatians 3:10 - What happens instead to those who "rely on works of the law"?
Cursed

How might we "rely on works of the law" today?

Why is this futile?

How is it possible for us to receive God's blessing instead of the curse of judgement?

(Also happen to be doing John 3 at a second session of Just Looking and again amazed at the solid consistency of Scripture yet rich complexity of simple truths: a promise/the gospel passed down through centuries, made to a man of faith whose faith was not quite as pure as one would expect, us Gentiles being able to become inheritors of the blessings made to a Semitic man who lived thousands of years ago by being in that man's offspring, the need to be born again by believing in Jesus and trusting him, being born again by cleansing by water and given a new heart and the Spirit as promised in Ezekiel, the dire situation we who chose not to worship God are in now foreshadowed by the dire situation the snake-bitten Israelites were in when they distrusted God, and the solution then and now being itself a turning away from and corrective of the original sin (pun intended). The wonderful reversal of the consequences and curses of the Fall.)

Orin applies: good for food, a delight to the eyes, a fragrance that fills a room

Team Meme and Ministry

Tim Keller's "The Prodigal God" and A Tired Old Food Meme

However defined, reductivist meme theories oughtn't preclude the truth of the content of memes. Unfortunately, the common assumption is that the fact of the existence of replicating belief units (the hypothesis itself possibly a meme and therefore disputable/disreputable?) does indeed demonstrate the lack of authenticity of those beliefs.

The idea commonly called "gravity", for instance, appears to be a good description of Reality, the objectivity of which may be demonstrated anywhere in the world by a non-believer in gravitational practices stepping off the side of a high bridge.

Tired Old Design Meme: Keep Calm & Carry On

What then to say to a girl, gently weeping that she could not believe in God because she had a happy childhood growing up in a loving Christian home and didn't know how else to think about the world? What misery it was to keep up appearances so as not to devastate loved ones.

A first (nervous) instinct might be to address the fallacies of relativism and pluralism, both philosophically and in terms of the overwhelming historical veracity of Jesus and his death and resurrection. While somewhat useful, this would merely be akin to producing identification documents and some Facebook data to show that her father did exist. But for her to desperately desire reconciliation with him, as much as he would spare no expense in bringing about that reunion, she would first have to be (re-)acquainted with Reality - who she really is, who God truly is and the cosmic consequences of what Jesus has done.

God is not adverse to memes. In fact, he commands parents to teach their children and their children's children about him. After all, loving parent wouldn't introduce his children to the most important person in the world and warn them of the terrible dangers of falling out of relationship with him? (But the world has deceived us of our common sense so that some mothers even refuse to teach their curious 7-year old daughters about sexual morality fearing that in so doing, they would commit the grave sin of imposing their learned values on their children. And this in a time when kindergarten teachers report rising cases of sexualised behaviour, like fellatio, amongst 3 year olds and maids observe their primary school charges regularly surfing the internet for porn.)

And in his second extant letter to Timothy, Paul commends the faith of Timothy which he learned from childhood from his mother and grandmother and Scripture, and he commands Timothy to continue in, and pass on, the gospel, the pattern of sound teaching, to faithful men who would be able to teach others the same truth.

Thank God he has not allowed her to presume salvation through her family/cultural heritage. Pray as we sit under God's word in the months to come that we will read it faithfully and so be taught, reproved, corrected, trained in righteousness and made wise for salvation, competent to do every good work.

For the aim of any ministry is to show how great are the riches of the glory of this open secret (which is Christ in us), the hope of glory and present everyone mature in Christ (Colossians 1:27-28). And the God-ordained means of doing this is the proclamation of Christ by making the word of God fully known, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom (Colossians 1:25,28).

In praying for her salvation, we are assured that God is a father who does more than give what his children ask for - he knows what they need even before they ask. And he shows mercy to all who ask for it.

But though she thinks that all will be well after conversion, we are duly and simultaneously warned and comforted that the temptation to worship another god (usually ourselves) will crouching at our door until our last breath; but we do not push along on our own steam while Christ looks down from heaven, rather we are regenerated and we have Christ in us, helping us through the Spirit, and so, the hope of glory. If we were left to ourselves, we would have no hope.

And so also, all ministry, having eternal consequences, will be backbreaking hard work, toil. We fight against our own sin, the sin of those whom we serve, and the princes and principalities of this world. But we will struggle on with all Christ's energy as he powerfully works in us (Colossians 1:29). It's strange that we think that God's hold on us is somewhat fragile and that he might lose his grip and allow us to plunge into a bottomless ravine if we so much as sneeze. But God, who made heaven and earth, is powerful beyond all measure. And he is doing more than regenerating little you and me; he is remaking the whole universe.

So in all of our Christian life, both its inception and its continuation, we rely on God's ability to respond to him in love and obedience, responsibly depending to his power in faith to live and do his work according to his Word. After all, this is part of trust and confidence in Christ.

Till We Have Faces

Set in perfect unity in a garden lush with trees pleasant to the sight and good for food, a paradise watered with streams of life, our parents together grasped at the authority of their Creator and became naked and barefaced (Genesis 3).

Barefaced, Noah's descendants, in harmonious unity, grasped again at the throne of their Saviour and were scattered (Genesis 11).

Barefaced, Korah and the leaders of the people whom God saved assembled themselves together against God and his prophet Moses (Numbers 16).

Barefaced, the rulers and elders and teachers of God's nation gathered against God's Son and his apostles (Acts 4), yet he died not just for the Jewish nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one (John 11).

Barefaced, we are their descendants who abuse even the remnant blessings of community to plot against the LORD and against his Anointed, who deceitfully preach another gospel to achieve a horrific simulacra of unity,...

...till we have faces that see our nakedness, we will never see the face of God nor stand with that great multitude that no one can number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, before the throne and before the Lamb and worship him forever (Revelation 7).

********************************************

Plus ça change...


...street noise, car horns, large tour buses, rampant construction, loudspeakers blaring from shops, tuk-tuk? tuk-tuk? touts, Russian market rip-offs, US$120,000 2010 Lexus cans, Ferraris, Hummers, bag-snatching moto thieves, gunfights...

...plus c'est la même chose

General
Wikitravel - Phnom Penh

Canby Publications

Telecommunications
Mobile phones and wifi are as rampant as tuk-tuk touts outside Tuol Sleng. Grab a local SIM card at the airport from Hello. Top-up with phone cards at random streetside places in the city. Unlimited mobile broadband from US$1 a day.

Food
Phnomenon

Comme à la Maison - French pastries for breakfast and late-night thin-crust pizza.

The Shop - coffee and cake break along Street 240. (Friends/family/fools loans for the proclamation trust fund.)

Boddhi Tree - good for a drink after Tuol Sleng, not so good for bites of the centipede variety.

Frizz - farang-friendly farang-priced Cambodian fare.

Bai Thong - starched white table-cloth French-IndoChinese, Richard Gillet - chef manager, 100-102 Sothearos Boulevard, Phnom Penh, baithong@online.com.kh.

Friends the Restaurant - tasty food, clean iced drinks, a Mith Samlanh venture run by "former street youth" and their teachers, 215 Street 13, friendstherestaurant@mithsamlanh.org.(Redeeming the time shortened by diabetes or lengthened by singlehood.)

Romdeng - another Friends International Mith Samlanh resto but with wifi and deep-fried tarantula and stir-fried red tree ants with beef and holy basil on the menu, 74 Street 174, Phnom Penh.

Riverhouse - happy hour daiquiris on Sisowath Quay. (Teary laughter while waiting for stranded friends.)

Accommodation
Goldie Guesthouse - opposite Khmer Suri. Hot water, airconditioning, telly, wifi. Try Room 8. Toilet in Room 7 packed up. Bed in Room 4 like hardboard. (Post-breakfast lounge-in with epilogue of Killing Fields, Living Fields.)

Spa
Spa Bliss, 29 Street 240, Phnom Penh, bliss@online.com.kh.

Bodia Spa

Shopping
Street 178
Scene of recovering Cambodian artistry. Most artists were wiped out by the Khmer Rouge.

Street 240
Expat Luxe Guide shopping
Bliss - feminine prints, feather-weight dresses, quilts, accessories, pillows, darling kiddy bloomers

Mekong Quilts - work of needy village women

Artisans d' Angkor - attempt by Chantiers-Écoles de formation professionnelle to train disadvantaged young people with little formal education, living for the most part in rural areas, and offer them a job entry program. Again, any skill that may have been handed down from Angkor artists perished under Pol Pot.

Confirel - palm sugar and Cambodian kampot black pepper. The cultivation techniques were also lost during the international community-complicit genocidal attempt to unify and purify a nation.

Harvesting the Killing Fields

The proposal to see God at work in Neak Loeung, Cambodia seemed exciting enough despite misgivings about so-called "short-term missions", strong convictions about such Christian tourism and thinking that perhaps the local missionaries might make better use of our airfare. (The ironic tyranny of current NGO-Think!)

Still, unlike the solo backpacking trip undertaken a decade ago to satiate personal wanderlust and curiosity about the world, the aim of this team visit was to encourage a couple in the field and explore the possibility of a long-term partnership with Simon and Angeline Porter (a "vision trip", it seems, in the missionary-speak!).

And unlike the previous excursion when one arrived at Phnom Penh only with scraps gleaned from a quick flip of an old Lonely Planet guide, there was enough now information online to indulge in what might sometimes be the sinful urge to decently plan ahead.

The Porters lived along National Highway 11 in Neak Leung (or Neak Loeung or Neak Loeang), south-east of Phnom Penh. Checked it out on satellite here and here.

Used wego.com to check for the lowest fare to Phnom Penh.

Checked-in online for the Silkair flight there.

Checked the seat guide for the Jetstar flight back.

Checked out what to expect upon arrival at Pochentong International Airport.

Checked visa requirements.

Determined if there were any "extra charges".

Was made to understand that the days of the Neak Loeung ferries (and its mobile hawkers) were numbered by the imminent arrival of a Japanese-funded bridge.

To know what to pack, checked local customs and weather.

To know what to pray about, checked out how the harvest was doing and the harvesting songs.

Then of course, to be sure that we would not be the main course on anyone's dinner menu, the Porters' blog! And here, Spangecake Productions shows them preparing to go to Cambodia together.

All planned, sorted and under control then.

But the humbling came quick and fast when it became obvious that despite oceans of information at our fingertips, we had no awareness of/control over our sinful self-centredness.

First, there was the imposition on our hosts - their having to get our rooms ready, top up the water tank (running water being non-existent) and the portable water (tap water being undrinkable), answer to our whims, have us gobble more than our fair share of food, bring us around for meals, tolerate us being far to concerned with babbling at their sweet-tempered baby to bother to make proper edifying conversation and gently prevent us from doing too much damage to their sheep.

Thankfully, they had Mai who, in addition to being a great house help, also cooked a fantastic vegetable kari for our first dinner and then spicy beef stew for a lunch.

And the Chos hosted us on the last night with an absolutely delicious Korean spread.

Second, the curse (or grace?) of Babel frustratingly prevented us from understanding the hours of goings-on at Sunday service at the Fellowship Church of Neak Loeung and the village children's event and the bible study/sharing that followed and having any meaningful or sustained conversations.

Still, we managed to possibly insult the lead teacher at the kindergarten in front of his colleagues and demonstrated fatal hubristic assurance of the superiority of our knowledge in childhood education.

But we should have learned:

1. To be considered about giving. Christian tourists like to roll up at an impoverished village and hand out money, clothes, towels, goodies (and then take photos with the cutest kids). Far from being a loving act, this pietistic consumerism encourages the local people to adopt a begging mentality and a dependency on foreign donations.

2. Not to give out sweets to children - dental hygiene may be lacking and all that sugar content will contribute to a deterioration in dental health.

3. That while teaching English and medical work may be useful for the community, the benefits of these in the here-and-now distract from the main aim which is to teach the gospel and thus save souls in the certain future. The karma-centric worldview of the common man meant a lack of interest in alleviating suffering and a disinterest in lives, especially if those living beings were children. Hot on the heels of acceptance of the gospel and the understanding that even the littlest, most insignificant humans are valuable because they are made in the image of God, will surely be social action and care for the community. The Korean missionaries who'd been in the field for 11 years warned, then, of putting the cart before the horse.

4. OMF's Indigenous Biblical Church Movement policy is a well-thought out and other person-centred strategy worth considering. It works to encourage sustainable growth with churches that use the local language and customs, and are led by local people who take responsibility for their funding, thinking and planning. There is emphasis on the use of methods and resources that are easily reproducible by the local people; otherwise, as is the case in Cambodia, the local people lack the confidence to do anything because each visiting group brandishes sure-win flashy material and snazzy booklets that they could not hope to emulate in the near future.

(However, as Cambodia ascends the developmental chart, its people are eager to embrace all that is Western as a symbol of progress. Hillsongs is apparently quite popular though there has yet to be the sort of mishearing of lyrics apparently prevalent in the Philippines, viz, "All-Whitey God", "Magic Tree, worship his Magic Tree...Uncle Jesus be all glory power and praise...")

5. That just as it is in our home churches, so it is in a foreign "mission field" that church life should be focused on the Bible as the ultimate authority for Christian living. We are to help people understand it for themselves. God's word, not the foreign missionary from a developed country, should be the basis of confidence for faith, evangelism, decision-making, life etc.

The good news is not a western gospel that needs to be contextualised but a gospel that speaks to all contexts - western and eastern, developed and developing.

6. Not to impose our imported methodologies or processes on the local church but rather to speak with local leaders about their reasons for conducting ministry or other matters in a certain way. Most likely, this is what they have found, through their own trial and error and in their understanding of their own people, works best.

7. While learning the vernacular and the local culture is necessary, there needs to be a balance between complete assimilation and sustainability of ministry.

(Having been the last of three sizeable adults squashed on a moto and constantly in danger of being bumped off at the next pothole and/or having my spine irreparably compressed, the dangers of acquiring incapacitating back problems in the name of living like the locals were obvious; but a car, however rundown and mozzie-filled, would set their owners a class apart... As would wearing shoes, or having a liking for tender chicken (an apparently expensive meat in these parts).)

8. All this requires a long-term commitment to live in community with the locals and to love them, not just to fly in for visits every now and then.

But it was wonderful to hear how God brought each person we met into relationship with him, through friends, talks, randomly reading the Bible. And in the brotherhood of God's children, our struggles against sin are similar, though amplified. Coming to meet with God's family on Sundays may be trying for pasty yuppies who want a sleep-in after a hard week but for many Cambodians in Neak Luoeng, such trials are amplified: it is about choosing to give up working on the most lucrative day of the week and making a serious dent in household income or about having enough fuel for the moto to get to church.

And in a country where public school (not necessarily the one pictured above) teachers are known to teach only half the syllabus and then demand more money to hand over the other half necessary for exams, choosing not to participate in the corruption could have a great impact on a Christian student's ability to move out of the poverty cycle through education.

There is no more romance in being a missionary in an exotic land (even though there are experiences to write home about - the heat that necessitates a siesta after lunch, mozzies at every turn, centipedes underfoot, cockroaches in the sink in the morning, mice in the rice cooker, pythons and cobras on church grounds, frogs in the toilet and bats in the attic) than there is being a missionary in one's homeland. Giving up one's comforts (and indeed, one's life) daily, thinking about how best to present the gospel in any given context, persevering, loving and caring for people for the long-term is what the home and overseas missionary must be concerned with, for that is our work and our calling as those who are imitators of Christ. Though the sweaty, bite-laden evangelist might find it physically and practically more difficult to slip into a complacent stupor in a comfortable neighbourhood.

Lots more to think through, but if we feel for the unknown victims of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, should we not then be desperate for the salvation of those around us? For there is a day that will be more horrible (and yet just) for the unrepentant than the atrocities at Tuol Sleng and we might already know some of the mug-shots that will be on that wall.

Don't Be Road Kill (1 Corinthians 9 - 11:1)

Enough fallen bodies by the wayside these past few months/weeks to be shocked into weeping and duly warned into remembering the sheer hard work and stubborn-mindedness needed to finish running the race (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).

It means nothing to have the "blessings" of this life (material or spiritual) - it is not enough to be "blessed" with fat o' the land in this life, to experience true miracles, to be supernaturally healed or saved from certain physical death, to be approved to lead/teach others, to be fruitful in multiplying one's ministry; none of these are conclusive evidence that God's favour is upon us.

God loved and chose the Israelites. He rescued them from slavery in Egypt through more mighty miracles than the civilised world had ever experienced. He carefully and graciously brought them out and provided for them all along the way. Yet, with most of them he was not pleased and all but two perished in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:1-10).

Running race means doing all for glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). But we do not run aimlessly (1 Corinthians 9:26). There is no licence for doing what we think bring him glory; God is fairly clear on what he wants - for all people to be saved. God will be worshipped on his own terms and not ours. We are duly warned by the destruction of the Israelites to made a golden calf as part of their worship and gratitude to the God who saved them (1 Corinthians 10:7), the killing of those who took sins lightly (1 Corinthians 10:8), the destruction of those who distrusted God (1 Corinthians 10:9) and the proud (1 Corinthians 10:10).

How can we then be so blindly bold as to insist on our rights and so hinder people accepting the gospel and its blessings (cf 1 Corinthians 9:1-23)?

How can we then be so glibly presumptuous of our freedom that we are dismissive of our worship of demons? (1 Corinthians 10:14-22)

Yet, God tells us that we will do so. Sacrificing our rights, not stumbling others, being paranoid about whom we worship are not good-to-haves for Advanced Christians. They are matters of eternal life and eternal death. Even the apostle Paul himself was in danger of being disqualified in the race after having seen Jesus and spent a lifetime preaching the Way (1 Corinthians 9:27). What more, we?

Let us beat our bodies and keep them under control, lest we too fall by the wayside. We have no excuse, for God can be trusted not to let us be overwhelmed with the temptation to stop running the race; he will give us an escape route from sin (1 Corinthians 10:13).


*for future personal reference - David Burke/ORPC, NIECU, SMUCF grads, that which caused an elder to leave his church, old lady killer litter and the 4D hunter etc