When Al King died in April 2008 after being diagnosed with a Stage 4 brain tumor, one life was lost, but hundreds more may have been saved.

Al King and his wife, Dolly, started Small Business Associates on Central Avenue in Middletown in 1985, and years later, even though they were successful, they sold it all — their home, cars, business and belongings — and took their four children, then ages 8-16, to Ukraine to begin mission work.

Dolly King admits now the move “took a lot of faith. God transplanted us there.”

Ten years later, in 2007, when their youngest child graduated from high school after being home schooled like the other three children, they returned to the United States during a furlough. The family was floored when doctors discovered that Al King had a brain tumor.

King, 58, was given only months to live.

On their last trip to the Ukraine, one month before he died, his wife said God “laid it on my heart” to reach out to women and their families through pregnancy centers.

“He gave me a purpose,” she said.

The organization, called Centers for Life International, opened in March 2012 in Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine, and two months ago was recognized as a charitable organization, she said.

Group representatives talk to students about the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, and try to meet their material and spiritual needs. The organization also works with pregnant women and those who are dealing with the depression sometimes associated with abortions.

Now King lives in Middletown and raises money for the organization that is run by Ira Myasnakova, a woman who lost her husband to a brain tumor about the same time as Dolly lost Al.

She said the women “have the same vision.”

King, 55, is executive director of Centers for Life International, a non-paying position. She is financially supported by area churches and individuals, she said. She also hosts a weekly Bible study in her Middletown home and volunteers at the Center of Hope for Women and Children, a Middletown homeless shelter.

Al and Dolly King were married for 23 years and he was her best friend, she said. What would her husband think of his best friend today?

“‘I told her she could do anything she wanted,’” she said.

Would Al be proud?

“I think so,” she said quietly.

She then stopped petting her dog, a Christmas present from her children, glanced down at her Bible sitting open nearby, and added: “More importantly, God is pleased with what He has me doing.”