MESA, Ariz. -- In the span of just a couple months, Barbara Fajardo’s life fell apart. From August to December, she got divorced, lost her job and lost her house.

“I just felt like a big loser,” Fajardo said. “I felt like everything I worked for was gone.”

Fajardo knew she needed help.

“People see you crying and they say, ‘Oh, she’s just down her luck,’” Fajardo said. “But Jon didn’t.”

Jon was Jon Martinez, a member of the same Catholic Church that Fajardo attended in Cottonwood, Ariz.

Martinez told Fajardo he would help. He allowed her to stay at his house in Jerome, Ariz., rent-free. He made her car payments. He took care of her insurance bills.

“I think he was just an angel who came to help me,” Fajardo said.

Fajardo lived with Martinez for a number of months before moving to Mesa and living with her mother.

But it was Martinez, Fajardo said, who pulled her up off the mat during her lowest time, so she asked to pay it forward to Martinez.

Earlier this week, CBS 5 News gave Fajardo $500 so she could do just that. Within one hour, Martinez came over to the house, and Fajardo gave him the money.

Martinez said the moment was “special,” but he was quick to point out that he didn’t help Fajardo because he was expecting a reward in return.

“I was just in a position where I had enough income coming in at the time where I could make a difference,” Martinez said.

Now, though, Martinez is the one struggling. His computer repair business is not as profitable as it once was, and Martinez has a medical issue to which to tend as well. So the $500 definitely comes at a good time.

As Fajardo wrote us: “(It's) my turn to help, if I can.”