CHESTERFIELD — Forrest “Press” Higginbotham knows how to sneak Bibles into foreign countries.

The easiest way is to stow the books in duffle bags, then move hastily through airport customs. When safely at a pre-arranged meeting spot, smugglers hand over the Bibles to Christian pastors or missionaries.

The scheme isn’t so much subterfuge as being able to blend in with a crowd.

The duffle bag method had worked three times previously for Higginbotham, 78, a former missionary and pastor in Africa who lives in Chesterfield.

But on Aug. 17, Higginbotham was among four Americans, including one of his grandsons, who were stopped by Chinese police as they toted duffle bags through the Kunming Wujiaba International Airport in southeast China.

Inside the bags were expensive Bibles with study guides intended for pastors working in secret Christian “house churches” in Communist China.

The delivery was coordinated by Vision Beyond Borders, a Wyoming agency that distributes Bibles and teaching materials in countries where they say Christians are persecuted.

Higginbotham was making his fourth trip with the organization and taking the third of his eight grandchildren on the journey.

Roadblocks were not new. He has been forced to cross the Mekong River from Cambodia into Vietnam by barge with Bibles in tow. He also hid Bibles in railroad station lockers and secretly exchanged the key with a Christian missionary.

But this time he was with his 15-year-old grandson, Stephen Constantinou of North Brunswick, N.J. Also on the trip were Vision Beyond Borders founder Patrick Klein and a 60-year-old mission worker from New York.

Each traveler had one piece of carry-on luggage and two duffle bags individually packed with 70 to 80 Bibles.

But security was heightened due to the Beijing Olympics, some 1,300 miles to the north. Customs officers demanded all luggage slide through a scanner. That’s when authorities found 300 Bibles.

Busted, as they say

Chinese police cited a 2007 law allowing one Bible per visitor.

“We all got busted, as they say,” recalled Higginbotham, speaking upon his safe return home. His wife, Barbara, was by his side as they talked on the front porch of their Chesterfield home.