A small Christian group of missionaries arrived in Thailand on Wednesday after being detained in China for attempting to distribute more than 300 Bibles.

The group, including a 78-year-old Anderson man and his grandson, had been given back the Bibles, said Diane Romeijn, a spokeswoman for Visions Beyond Border.

Forrest Presnell Higginbotham, of Anderson, and his grandson, Stephen Constantinou, 15, were among the four American Christians who took Bibles and were stopped at Kunming Wujiaba International Airport in the Yunnan Province of southeast China.

The others are Pat Klein, 46, who is with Visions Beyond Borders of Sherian, Wyo., and Steve Nichols, 60, of New York.

Visions Beyond Borders distributes Bibles and Christian teaching materials around the world.

According to Klein, each of them was fined $400 in U.S. dollars for the overweight luggage. Each had about 65 to 70 Bibles. The Chinese customs officials told the four Americans that their all of their Bibles were confiscated as “illegal religious literature.”

Chinese authority allows limited numbers of Bibles, and they are only available at officially sanctioned churches. The sale of Bibles is forbidden in public bookstores.

Klein spoke to the China Aid Association which issued a press release.

“The Chinese leaders keep telling the world the Chinese people have religious freedom. To even prevent them from receiving Bibles certainly contradicts that claim,” the news release said Klein told CAA President Bob Fu in a telephone interview.

Initially, the group refused to leave the airport with Bibles. However, Romeijn said the Bibles were returned.