The India Children's Choir, on a 10-month tour of the United States, will perform at 6:30 p.m. April 11 at Cave Spring Baptist Church, 4873 Brambleton Ave. S.W.

The 22 choir members, ages 8 to 12, come from the hills of Manipur on the India-Burma-China border.

Through traditional dance and song, they tell the story of the transformation of their ancestors in the Hmar tribe from fierce headhunters to ambassadors for Christ, according to a news release from Cave Spring Baptist.

The transformation came after a missionary from Wales gave tribal leaders a copy of the Gospel of John, translated into their language, about 100 years ago. Later, Rochunga Pudaite, the grandson of one of the leaders, translated the Bible into the Hmar language for his people. Now 98 percent of the tribe claim Jesus Christ as their Lord, according to the Web site for Bibles For The World.

Pudaite and his wife, Mawii, started Bibles For The World, an organization that shares the Bible with people in their native languages, in 1972 and have distributed more than 16 million Bibles in more than 100 countries.

They sponsor the Children's Choir of India as a ministry of Bibles For The World and as a thank you to those who support the village schools, churches, hospital and seminary that they established, according to the Web site.

-- JoAnne Poindexter