Take for example 91 year old Berthe Harvey. She wasn't planning a move, but caught in the dark without heat, she agreed to take up new residence in a classroom. Her space was just a small corner up against the school chalkboard, her bed a stiff army cot perched a foot higher than what she could comfortably climb in, and the bathroom a walk down the hall and rather cold, but she had no complaints.

'This is the house of God," said Harvey. "You can feel God here, I am praying all the time." Her new "house of God" was a Red Cross shelter at Mount Sacred Heart School in Granby, Quebec, a sprawling complex and dormitory run by about 20 Friars.

"I think the storm is a sign of the end times," said Harvey with a beaming smile and sparkle in her eyes, "you can feel God is close."

One floor below, Rev. Raymond LaSage of a local Baptist church was in the kitchen, working as a server for the 745 people using the shelter.

"It is a good time to be a pastor now," said LaSage. "People are asking questions about God's hand in all this, we think it's time to ask people are you ready to meet God?" He worked along side Father Pierre Boutet who had shuffled the Friars schedule to hold mass daily for the storm victims.

"We couldn't ask for any better, it takes men who are dedicated to the Lord like these Brothers who just keeping giving day after day," said Claire Beauregard, aged 81.

At the peak of the crisis, six out of every 10 Quebeckers, were without power, there were 44 storm related deaths and over 300,000 people in Eastern Ontario and Quebec lost their hydro for 19 days or more.

Premier Lucien Bouchard called the ice crisis an "act of God" and Christians who had been praying for their province couldn't agree more. In Granby, pastors of several denominations who had been meeting weekly for three years to pray for revival saw the hydro black out as a sovereign answer to their prayer.

"God knows we've missed love in this province," said Rev. Richard Houle of Eglise Evangelique Baptiste de la Haute-Yamaska. "So now we must love, with no water, no electricity, we have a good opportunity to share the Lord, people can sense now the church is not a building but it's in you."

After two weeks of opening Le'Eglise Nouvelle Vie in Longuille as a shelter, and then a food depot for his community on the south shore of Montreal, Pastor Claude Houde was thrilled to see over 50 visitors to the next Sunday morning service commit their life to Jesus Christ. "We could have done church services and advertised for two more years but we could have never had the impact we were able to have because these people slept in our sanctuary, ate our food and shared our love. It's been great !"

Four years ago, the Pentecostal church renovated an old grocery store for it's meeting place, that meant it was equipped with a generator and storage space. On the night of the black out, it beamed like a beacon to it's community of 700,000, and became a civic gathering place. They served 4000 meals and the food bank it had been operating fired up a walk in cooler and handed out over $60,000 a day of free food to families who missed over two weeks pay due to closed work places and knew the smell of spoiled food from their refrigerators.

The Salvation Army in Kingston had a similar demand on it's services. Over ten times their usual client load came asking for groceries during the crisis, and they served over 4300 meals. At one point, the Canadian Army landed a helicopter in the park next to the Salvation Army and air lifted 300 of their meals to the small town of Batter Sea, just north of Kingston. "This is a work of faith, we're not sure where the money for this is going to come from, but it has to be done," said Major Garnet Cassell. "What we have learned is to thank God in heaven for our utilities, I know we all will when this is over."