Like any good church choir, the Salvation Choir is busy on Sundays. First, the group’s members perform at a weekly service in Independence. Then they head to Kansas City’s Northeast area, where the Congolese refugees who make up the band rehearse their songs in a dark, barn-shaped garage still wearing their Sunday best. The Salvation Choir’s songs, sung in Swahili, are religious in nature. But over the past year this sprawling group of immigrant singers and dancers has been winning over secular audiences who’ve encountered them in unlikely local venues: at the Boulevardia beer-and-music festival, at a rally for the renters’-rights group KC Tenants and most recently at the Salvation Choir’s sold-out December show at The Ship. “It seems like more people want to know us, more people are inspired by our music,” said Albertina Wilondja, the 17-year-old daughter of Pastor John Wilondja, the group’s leader. “We’re very blessed. That was our dream two years ago and now that it’s happening i...