The sun rises around 5:20 a.m. in central Guatemala, washing the small villages in a hazy light, which signals the start of another day of work, study, play and worship.

In Guatemala City, a thriving metropolis dotted with modern office buildings, Burger Kings and tin-roofed housing, the roads are choked with brightly painted buses, trucks and cars by 6 a.m. On the city's outskirts, donkeys and horses compete for a space on the shoulder of the highway.

Up in the higher mountain elevations, low-lying clouds shroud the trees in an eerie whiteness. Laborers are already busy hacking rock from the mountain sides for road construction, and women guide their herds of sheep or goats to grassy spots for feeding.

School starts at 8 a.m. for children lucky enough to attend. The desks are old and rickety and the learning materials are nil.

These are a few of the observations made by a ten-member fact-finding team from Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Peachtree City, visiting Guatemala for five days last week. The purpose of the trip was to assess the needs of parishes in the Diocese of Huehuetenango in order to provide future assistance in areas such as construction, medical care, educational supplies and finance.

The group's findings were overwhelming. For example, doctors are found only in sizable cities, leaving thousands of people to seek medical help from clinicians trained on the level of U.S. physician assistants. Most of these clinics are provided and administered by the Catholic Church. Dental offices consist of a chair, a table and what looks like a pair of pliers.

Parochial schools outnumber state institutions seven to one. One school visited in the town of San Pedro Soloma educated approximately 700 children with 17 teachers, five of whom were members of the religious order of sisters. The monthly salary of teachers working in church-run schools is $100. State teacher salaries are $200 per month.

The churches are the hub of each community and are usually located on the square. The faithful bring handfuls of small lit tapers throughout the day and evening to place before statues of Christ and a multitude of saints, praying quietly or aloud for loved ones. The pews are rough-hewn and dusty. The altars are dotted with hand-picked bouquets contained in cans or sometimes, vases.

About 18 priests circulate among 30 parishes, often traveling long distances on substandard roads, sometimes walking hours to the church to celebrate Mass.

The people of Holy Trinity made a commitment during this Jubilee Year of the church to take on a social justice project in keeping with the central theme of the 2000 celebration. To fulfill their promise, follow-up trips to Huehuetenango are scheduled, the next one set for Aug. 7-13.

Tentative plans are to work with the bishop of the HueHuetenango Diocese to provide needed support in the most desperate areas including medicine, money for school breakfast programs, and school supplies. Members of the fact-finding team were the Rev. Fernando Molina-Restrepo, David Suwinski, Rudi Forster, Bill Camper, Pedro Cabrera, Clare Reed, Marta Ramos, Maria Ramos, Kirsten Foschman and this reporter.

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