Photo: Ryan and Sarah Gerber in front of the Kansas City Convention Center. Photo by Rebecca Helmuth.

Ryan and Sarah Gerber had been married for all of 10 days before arriving at the Mennonite convention in Kansas City, Mo. The couple chose to spend the second half of their two-week honeymoon volunteering with Mennonite Mission Network’s Servant Projects.

And why shouldn’t they? Convention is where they met, after all.

In July of 2013 Sarah Leland and her friends drove cross country to volunteer at the Mennonite convention in Phoenix.

Sarah was a special education teacher in the Rockingham County (Va.) school system and looked forward to her week in Arizona. At the same time Ryan arrived in Phoenix from his home in Wakarusa, Ind.

July 4, 2013 was a free day for the convention volunteers so Sarah and her friends decided to spend the day hiking in the mountains of Sedona. Sarah invited a pair of men who had played Dutch Blitz at her table the night before, but Ryan was the only taker for the hike. And so the foursome spent the day in the mountains of Sedona.

For the rest of the weeklong convention, Sarah and Ryan shuttled church youth groups to the organizations where they would volunteer and worked with the groups before delivering them safely back to the convention center. By the end of the week, Ryan says was smitten and talked seriously with Sarah about dating.

“I couldn’t see dating someone long distance,” said Sarah on July 4. “Indiana to Virginia? That’s a long way.”

But Ryan was determined and when he discovered Sarah was stopping in Three Rivers, Mich., on her way home, he quickly made the 45 minute drive from Wakarusa to spend a little more time with her.

By August it was official. Ryan and Sarah were dating. For nearly a year they maintained their long distance relationship until Ryan found a summer internship and moved to Gaithersburg, Md. In the fall Sarah found a long-term substitute teaching position at Northwood High School in Wakarusa and made the move to Indiana.

Sarah spent her Christmas break in her hometown of Chambersburg, Pa., before visiting friends with Ryan in Virginia. On Jan. 2, Ryan took Sarah for a hike in the Blue Ridge mountains and proposed. On June 20, the couple were married at Sarah’s home church, Marion Mennonite in Chambersburg.

The couple spent the first part of their honeymoon on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and then Ryan took over.

“I wanted to surprise Sarah,” said Ryan, “so I planned a road trip to Kansas City.”

They made a number of stops including one of Sarah’s dreams: stand-up paddle boarding in Kentucky.

Their final goal was to come full circle and spend the week volunteering at the Mennonite convention. According to convention planner Scott Hartman there are a number of marriages that got their start at the Mennonite convention.