Bree Cruz is the 111Project Regional Manager for Northeast Region 5A including Tulsa County, Osage County, Pawnee County and Washington County. Her role includes supporting church leaders, mobilizing local churches and community partners and managing the ecosystem of care. Bree joined the team in March of 2022, but has worked in ministry and supporting pastors for years.
Before starting at 111Project, Bree worked in the missions and women’s ministry at Journey Church in Norman; she served as an intern locally and internationally in Haiti for Missions of Hope; after moving back to Tulsa, she worked in missions at BattleCreek Church for five years then worked at Redeemer Church.
Bree received an Associate degree in Cultural Anthropology and an Associate degree in Non-Profit Management from the University of Oklahoma. She has been married to her husband, Mark, for eight years and they have one son named Gray, who they adopted out of foster care. They attend Crossover Bible Church.
Rather than a favorite verse, Bree’s favorite passage in the Bible is found in Psalms 45 and 46 and the Book of Jonah.
Bree said she reads Psalms 45 and 46 in times of celebration and hopelessness.
“I say it to my family all the time, we have to remember the Lord,” she said. “We have to remember who He is; we have to remember what He’s done. Remembering is so important and Psalms 46 is just a great way to reflect and remember, no matter the circumstance.”
The Book of Jonah is her favorite book because God calls Jonah to go to a place no one want to go, which today can translate to parts of town or types of people that CarePortal requests take responders.
“He’s pursuing the places we don’t want to pursue,” she said. “What a privilege it is to be a vessel to go to the places that God sees when other people don’t.”
Growing up in the Bible Belt, Bree grew up attending church occasionally and had friends who were believers, but she didn’t accept the Lord into her heart until her first week in college at University of Oklahoma.
Her first experience with foster care was when her husband was serving as the Youth Pastor at the BattleCreek Church downtown location. Bree and Mark saw the families impacted by the child welfare system in a different light.
“These are not bad moms and dads they just don’t know better,” she said. “They want so badly to take care of their kids, but they don’t have the resources. They don’t have the time; they don’t have the support.”
Mark and Bree served as kinship foster placements for four teenage boys in their youth ministry and became passionate about equipping parents and communities to have what they need to thrive.
“We had now found out a different side of poverty, a different side of child welfare, a different side of foster care, a different side of reunification,” she said. “It wasn’t these faraway stories anymore, but it was stories we were actually living.”
Mark and Bree adopted their son Gray from foster care after becoming his kinship placement. Throughout their foster care journey, they housed and loved seven boys.
“Until Jesus comes back, we will need foster, adoptive and kinship families,” she said. “But I also think there’s some things we can do between now and then that reduce the number of removals by just being awkward, and being friends with people who maybe aren’t as easy to be friends with just because they’re different than us.”
Bree can be reached through the 111Project Contact Page.