ORANGE CITY, Iowa -- With three biological kids, two high school international exchange students, three college international students and the recent adoption of two children from Ethiopia, Doug and Lisa Burg have a home that rivals the United Nations in representation.

Perhaps in bedlam as well.

"The other night our two international high school girls commented to each other 'Something different happens every day at the Burgs!'" said Lisa. "But I asked if they were OK with our crazy house and they said they love it and are so glad to be here."

The extra family members might not have been added if the patriarch of the Burg clan hadn't become critically ill a dozen years ago.

Doug, a commercial photographer, had contracted hantavirus probably from touching his photo cables that came in contact with mouse droppings. Just before Christmas 1997, Doug experienced body pain and fever. Ultimately, his lungs filled with fluid and then collapsed. He was airlifted to Sioux Falls and spent two weeks in the Intensive Care Unit. Lisa pointed out the mortality rate for hantavirus is 80 percent.

When Doug recovered, the Burgs looked at his recovery as "God giving us a second chance," Lisa said. "People kept telling us that God has something more for Doug to do in his life.

"We decided to have a baby and continue to add to our family," she said, "Maria was 11 and Isaac was 9, and I was 40 when Tessa was born."

The Burgs wanted to continue to add to their family after Tessa was born, but the cost of adopting a domestic or international child was in the range of $30,000 to $35,000.

"I said no to it at the time," Doug insisted.

"We did try the foster parent program, but we just didn't feel called to that," Lisa added. "We started looking at international adoptions again, especially in Ethiopia where there are about 4 million orphans."

The Burgs also knew two families from their church, American Reformed Church, who had adopted Ethiopian orphans. The paperwork trail began in April 2008.

"We had a home study, a criminal background check, got reference letters, had tax returns reviewed and filled out reams and reams of forms," Lisa said. "It involved compiling a dossier."

Once the paperwork was in place -- over a year later -- the Burgs were informed by the adoption agency that a brother and sister were available. Their parents had disappeared and their maternal grandmother had turned them over to the orphanage.

"It was like an emotional roller coaster from that point," Doug said. "We wondered if we could do this."

"Friends wondered if we were crazy," Lisa added.

"I'd tell them we have always been a little crazy," Doug said with a grin.

The moment of truth came when Doug, 56, Lisa, 48, and 8-year-old daughter Tessa, arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sept. 17 to pick up Yeabsera (Sera) and Abenezer (Ben).

"After a few days there, I got sick," Lisa said. "It all seemed so overwhelming. I cried and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. Could we take care of and love these kids as our own?"

"I told Lisa it was all right to love them differently," Doug noted. "We're not perfect, but we can give these kids a better life."

The Burgs are also providing a residence for MOC-Floyd Valley junior Tess Gommers of The Netherlands -- who has been living in Portugal with her family for the past six years -- and senior Ulpan Kurumbayeva of Kazakhstan.

"We have six languages that might surface at our house at any given time," Lisa said. "English, Amharic, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian and Kazakhstan. It's like the U.N. of Orange City. I guess we believe in hospitality."

So does the rest of the family.

"Isaac and Maria have been supportive through everything," Lisa said of her older biological children. "They both gave up their rooms for Ulpan and Tess, and even though they don't live with us full time now -- Maria is an R.A. in the dorms at Western Iowa Tech and Isaac now lives with his father in Orange City -- I'm sure it was a loss to have all their things moved out of their rooms here at home."

She continued, "Tessa, too, has had a huge adjustment. She is now sharing a room and all her things, and most important, Sera and Ben are very demanding and needy and require a lot of our time and energy, so Tessa has lost some of that one-on-one with us."

Change can also be unsettling for the adoptees, Lisa added.

"Adopting is a transformative experience for everyone and no one should go into it thinking it's going to be so wonderful for children to come to America," she explained. "Yes, being able to have a family and a future transforms their lives forever, but the loss they experience is huge."

After all, the children have left their friends, their caregivers, the smells and tastes and sights of home, Lisa pointed out.

"Now they're here with total strangers who cannot speak their language or really understand their needs and feelings and loss," she noted.

Lisa cautioned individuals considering adopting internationally as fulfilling their own wants and needs for a child, "to bring home a little princess," may be in for a big surprise.

"There's a lot of work involved for the whole family, such as discipline issues, language, and communication difficulties," she said. "It's a commitment for everyone."

But comfort and love continue to grow since the Burgs brought their adoptive children into their home. Especially since they are blessed with a true "village" of extended family, friends, other adoptive parents, and their church to support them.

"I don't how Sera and Ben do it, but it must be osmosis," Doug joked. "They are already learning English."

"I'm just eager for the day they can speak English better," Lisa said. "So we can ask them what their lives were really like before us."