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Raymond Jackson Sr. and his wife, Vanessa, were sprung from jail only hours earlier by the church's pastor, who put up $5,000 of his own money and took out a lien on his house to help free the couple on bail, a church official said.

"Your love and your prayers - that's what kept us going," an emotional Raymond Jackson told more than 150 parishioners from the front of the Come Alive New Testament Church in Medford at around 10 a.m.

"There were people [in jail] who didn't really like us, and there was a lot of hatred there, a lot of hatred," Jackson said, his voice breaking.

"[But] God said to forgive, and I forgive from my heart. The truth will be revealed."

Vanessa Jackson added, "Thank you for all your support," before breaking down in tears.

The parents' appearance came as a former neighbor of the family, which used to live in Pennsauken, said he called police eight years ago after the oldest of the boys - Bruce Jackson, now 19 - came to his house begging for food.

It was Bruce who unknowingly tipped off cops to his and his brothers' plight earlier last month when he was caught rummaging through another neighbor's trash cans near where the family now lives in Collingswood.

The neighbor in the earlier case said that at that time, he gave a small and scrawny Bruce sandwiches and called the cops, the Sunday Newark Star Ledger reported.

Pennsauken cops said they didn't immediately know of that case. Camden County prosecutors said that they, too, were unaware of it.

The new story first surfaced Friday in a public statement issued by the Jacksons themselves, in which they tried to demonstrate Bruce was troubled and known to lie.

Raymond Jackson said Bruce once ran away from their Pennsauken home, and "when he was found, he told the police that his family had left him and went to Florida. When the police checked the house, our family was there."

The Jacksons, who adopted the four boys, have won continued support from their church, with members cheering wildly yesterday as the pair held a weepy reunion with four of their biological children on the building's steps, hugging and kissing for the first time since the couple had been tossed into jail Oct. 24.

Authorities say the parents are behind one of the worst child-abuse cases in history, having starved and neglected the four adopted boys, ages 9 to 19.

When found last month, none of the boys was over 4 feet tall or more than 50 pounds.

The Jacksons claim that the boys suffer from eating disorders so severe that they had to feed them only uncooked oatmeal, peanut butter and cereal.

Church officials would not say where the couple is staying now, except to say it's not at their Collingswood house.

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