JSF - Fill table with a data set

I am diving head first into JSF and have found it to be nice (and
challenging to learn).  The hardest part to deal with is that I am not
controlling the different stages, but instead the JSF life cycle handles
it for me.  I have figured out how to create my own validator, my own
action listener, and now I want to display a result set or data set back
to the browser.  I am assuming that I should create a faces component
like Data Table, and I am assuming that I should fill this Data Table in
my action listener.  There in lies the problem - how do I display a
result set back to the user, filling in a predefined JSF Data Table?

I have tried some simple things like changing the background color of
the table without success. See below for what I have tried.

HtmlDataTable table1 = (HtmlDataTable)
PageCodeBase.findComponentInRoot("table1");
table1.setBgcolor("black");

Note that I am not using WDO (SDO) but rather am getting my data from
data queues being filled by RPG. So somewhere in the JSF cycle I need to
go and get the result set by calling existing Java/RPG logic.

Hope I made sense in what I am trying to do. Thoughts?

Aaron Bartell