I have had a frustrating week of ministry and I still don't know what to do about it. I feel like God is teaching me how to be a Godly woman in ministry but I have not gotten it yet. I know everything has been great preparation for how it will be in Chile, but that does not make it fun.

As most of you know, I am a part time campus minister on a team with two others. A married guy (older than me) and a married girl (younger than me). We work great together and are good at protecting each other from mistakes. Within the last 3 days I have had two students in our ministry show interest in me that was more than friendship. I seriously was shocked and was caught off guard and probably did not respond in the best way. I have experienced this problem before when working with Muslim students but for some reason this feels different.

The first dude is an "interesting" guy and no one I would ever be interested in, even if it were ok. He also has girl/guy problems because he is "interesting." From what I have heard and experienced he hates girls because they never show him attention, but he still likes girls because he is a guy. So here comes this nice, Christian girl (me) who takes him to church and tells him she hopes he comes to activities and he gets the wrong idea. I did not see it coming but the other day after I talked to him he awkwardly asked me if he could have a hug. Not knowing what to do I gave him one, frontal. Now I love hugs and most are fine, but in these situations I really need to practice my side hug. Art (guy partner), saw it all and we got to talk about it some. No more of me taking this guy to church. But I do not know where the balance is because I do not want to be another girl who makes him hates girls, but I cannot keep doing what I am doing.

The second incident was last night at a service project. This other student who does not come to stuff much did come so I was really excited. We were walking up some stairs and very coolly he asked if I wanted to go to the ballet in a few weeks. Totally shocked I did not look at him and told him I had a super busy and strange schedule so I would have to check and get back to him. First, I do not like the ballet so I would not want to go anyways, but pretty sure going on a date with one of the students is a little inappropriate! No one else heard what went on until he brought it up again in front of others and Art asked what we were talking about he this guy said we were going to the ballet together. Ahh! Luckily I explained to Art later that this would not happen I just did not know what to do. Part of Art thinks this is so funny but I make sure he knows I do not.

Now I have never considered myself a flirt or the one all the guys want. I do not date much, which is not exactly because I don't want to. Just never happens. So I am totally thrown off when someone thinks that I am giving them the impression that I like them. In my mind I am their minister who is nice to them because they are weird and no one else is nice to them. I try to be Jesus to them so they can come to know Jesus. In their mind I am this older girl who is into them! How does this happen? How does Jesus' love get skewed into romantic love and how do I keep that from happening?

Do I need to only do ministry with women? But that cuts my outreach by 50%!!!! I do not want to give up ministry to guys but I guess I am not doing a good job of handling it. That makes me sad because I did not know I was doing a bad job. I don't know what to do. But I know I do not want to become a creepy minister that pursue relationships with their students because I have known too many ministers to fall into that trap and it is so sad. Do I need to get married? Will that help? I hope to get married some day but I do not want this to be the reason.

Anyone else had this problem?