Lesa Brown was born in Aurora, grew up in Kansas City, and has lived, worked and studied in the safari capital of the world: Nairobi, Kenya â all before moving to the base of Americaâs Mountain. She and her husband are the music directors of Grace + Peace Church, which meets in the basement of The Warehouse restaurant in Downtown Colorado Springs. Brownâs husband is also a video producer at Compassion International, a humanitarian organization headquartered here, while Brown herself is the founder and executive director of Awaken Creative Institute, a nonprofit that seeks to inspire empathy, awareness and solidarity through the use of the arts.Â