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The visible unemployment rate in 2006 was 16.30 per cent while the open unemployment figure reached 3.10. In 2006 the percentage of poverty was 57 per cent and extreme poverty 22 per cent of the total population. The volume of family remittances from the United States reached the sum of 3,610 millions of dollars (Ministerio de Economia 2006). The data for the Active Economic Population in 2005 revealed the presence of 3,239 million men and 1,433 million women. In urban areas 1,958 millions are economically active while in the rural areas the rate is 2,499 millions. Some of the data mentioned reveals a series of contrasts and contradictions which have been present since colonial times. This places Guatemala as one of the countries with more social inequality in Latina America (World Bank \u2018Parte 1: magnitud y causas de la pobreza\u2019 2003: 13) and hope for a better future must be on their agenda.\u000A2. Evangelicals in Guatemalan society\u000AProtestantism arrived officially to Guatemala with the Liberal Revolution of 1882. John Clark Hill, a Presbyterian missionary, arrived by express invitation of president Justo Rufinos Barrios. The Liberals in Latin America considered Protestantism as a means to counter balance the Catholic Church\u2019s influence and power, and as a vehicle for progress because of their ideals and values with regard to economic development.18 The presence of Protestantism was important in the breaking up of religious hegemony of the Catholic Church. The \u2018liberal ideology had been converted into a symbol of confidence in the value of foreign investment and in the emulation of foreign models, in strident anti-clericalism and in the negation of the institutions and Hispanic customs which the liberals considered to be contrary to modern progress\u2019 (Garrard-Burnett 1990: 14). According to some authors the Protestant missionaries arrived with the idea of \u2018evangelizing in order to civilize\u2019 influences by their characteristic worldview (Samand\u00FA 1990: 77-79).\u000A18 Pablo Burgess gives the details of the Liberal Reform in his book Justo Rufino Barrios: Una Biograf\u00EDa (1871). Publicaci\u00F3n Especial No.17 de la Sociedad de Geograf\u00EDa e Historia de Guatemala (1971). The historian Casimiro Rubio focuses on similar data to that of Pablo Burgess. He even cites some data that Burgess reveals about those times (Rubio 1935).\u000A44\u000A