October 23, 2019
When we got into the in-home care business, we knew that it would be the best way for us to live out our Christian values every day in the workplace and in the homes of our clients. We originally named ourselves Agapé Home Care because we wanted to offer the same love to our clients that God gives us. Agapé love is the kind that is never failing, never judging, and everlasting. When we began this journey all those years ago, we knew that this kind of love is the love we wanted to experience and influence every day.
As we began learning more about agapé love, we knew that our reach was being limited by our capacity to only offer in-home care services to the Flathead Valley of Montana. We love the people we’ve met and the work we’ve been blessed to carry out, so much so, that we want others to experience that for themselves. In deciding to expand our business into a franchise, we felt that a change of name would be in order to illustrate this new endeavor. When we looked at ourselves in the mirror, we literally saw a reflection of agapé—EPAGA. After sitting down to really think about it, that’s what we want God to see when He looks at us; a reflection of the agapé love he gives us. We knew He was challenging us to share our agapé love with servant leaders around the world who are searching for their chance to give back to others.
As we made the exciting decision to change our name, we knew that this transition might confuse or even worry people who have come to know and trust Agapé Home Care. That’s why we felt that it was important to stick to the Christian values that brought us to where we are. Regardless of the name on our shirt, we want to interact with our clients and communities the same way Jesus did. One of our favorite Bible verses is John 13:34;
“Jesus calls us to a new commandment to love each other as He loved us.”
In our study of the Christian Bible, we have drawn ourselves to nine core values to live by.
Honesty
Transparency
Dependability
Accountability
Respect
Joy
Fun
Dedication
Courage
These are the values that we strive to live out through the interactions with each of our clients. When we bring new people to the EPAGA team, these are the qualities that we look for. We hope that everyone that we interact with will see these in our actions, and ultimately, live a reflection of these qualities in their lives too. As we are still new in this journey, we thought it was important to create a space where we can illustrate the vitality of these values, as well as their integration in our daily lives.
1 - Honesty
There’s no other place we can start. We have the crazy-amazing opportunity for families to ask us to care for their loved ones in a time of vulnerability and natural discomfort. We can’t imagine a more important commandment than honesty. Everyone on the EPAGA team is expected to be honest with us, honest with you, honest with your loved ones, and honest with themselves.
It can be hard to reach a place of honesty with ourselves and our family when a loved one needs an in-home care professional. In some ways, we might be embarrassed or worried about bringing someone we don’t know into our loved one’s most vulnerable space. Fortunately, we quickly find that the burden of uncertainty and worry is lifted from our shoulders when we can trust in someone who demonstrates integrity in caring for the most important people in our lives.
Sometimes we even struggle with honesty in our Christian walk. It can be hard to share our deepest darkest moments with God. But if you have ever opened up and brought God into your life in that way, you know first-hand the empowerment of embracing honesty. To us it’s our greatest tool.
2 - TRANSPARENCY
Now you might be thinking, “well isn’t transparency the same as honesty?” To us, there’s a key difference. With honesty comes an element of bluntness--we want to tell it to you like it is. Transparency, on the other hand, is being open to cordial communication about why the things that are happening on a day to day basis are occurring. Because as much as our focus is on providing the best care for your Mother, Father, Sister, Cousin, or Friend, we also want to build a trusting relationship with you.
Honesty sounds like, “Grandpa isn’t doing very well these days. He has a hard time getting up and about.”
Transparency is more like, “Yeah, Grandpa isn’t doing well these days. He hasn’t been able to bathe this week because he gets too tired. He needs our help to accomplish daily tasks.”
Both are important in a relationship, but transparency allows us and you to be more actionable and accountable about things. It allows us to find problems and work together to find solutions. But transparency isn’t just important in client-to-caretaker relationships.
We strive to be transparent with you about things like billing, staffing changes or needs, and much more. Maybe your loved one is at a place where they need a specific care plan for the next few months. As the days go by, we might find that your loved one is doing a lot better and is actually better off in a different type of care situation. We believe that a transparent company should communicate with the family and offer a care plan that is not only better suited for the individual receiving care, but also more kind to the budget of the family.
We will never put our profit in front of what’s best for YOU.
That’s what transparency is and that’s why it’s so important to us.
3 - DEPENDABILITY
This one, in our opinion, is a no-brainer. How can we not be dependable when so many families count on us to ensure their loved one is comfortable and safe?
We will never hire anyone who isn’t dependable.
Whether it’s someone in our office who’s answering your questions over the phone or an EPAGA Accredited Caretaker in the field, there’s no excuse for us to not be there when you need us most.
There’s enough that you have to worry about with a family member that needs a little more help. Worrying about your loved one’s caregiver not showing up for their shift should NEVER be something that you have to worry about. While we have had instances of scheduling mishaps or caregivers feeling under the weather, it is our responsibility to ensure that someone walks through your loved one’s front door when they need them, whether it’s a last-minute switcheroo, a back up caregiver, or yes, even us (Inga, Julie, and Kevin). We think it’s pretty important to be in the office serving all of our clients and franchisees, but nothing will ever stop us from rolling up our sleeves and being there to care for your loved ones when needed. It’s not just important to us, it’s how we are built. It’s who we are.
4 - Accountability
No matter what happens in our business, we will always take fault. From a typo in an email, to discrepancies with employees, there’s no one but to blame but us. If something isn’t right, we want to make it the way it’s supposed to be.
We think this is one of the skills God is best at showing. When we think about the way Jesus died to give us eternal life, how can we not see the accountability He showed for us? Jesus’ leadership style was all about accountability. Even before Jesus died for us, when one of his followers cut off the ear of a Roman soldier, Jesus took responsibility and healed the soldier. That model is clear as day to us. When we sit together as a team and talk about what accountability means in the EPAGA Home Care vocabulary, that’s what comes to mind.
5 - Respect
It’s sort of the golden rule we all learned in school, so how could we not live by it? We believe that everyone should be treated with respect. A lot of times we hear the “respect is earned not given” line. But that’s not how we roll. We believe in giving respect to everyone we meet, regardless of who they are or how they choose to live. After all, we don’t remember the golden rule to be, “treat others as you wish to be treated; as long as they have proven that they deserve to be treated that way.” That’s just nonsense!
6 - Joy
This one is one of our favorites. We loved it so much we put it in our tagline!
“Provide Care. Bring Joy.”
If we’ve had the chance to meet you, one of the first things we hope comes to mind is how much we love to laugh and smile (well, except for Kevin… kidding, kidding!).
But seriously, we work in a field that can sometimes be emotionally draining. We love the people we get to work with, but sometimes it’s hard to not feel down when clients aren’t doing well, or it was their time to meet our creator. So we try to come to work every day with a genuine smile and ask ourselves, “who can I bring joy to today?” We see it every time we meet a new client. It typically begins with a look of anxiety and worry about what will come of their loved one, to later finding comfort in the hands of our employees. We feel that anything we can do to make someone rejoice in life and feel true joy, then we have done our job.
7 - Fun
If you’ve ever met us outside of EPAGA, you know that we love to have fun! We thrive off of being able to explore our passions with people we love; and let me tell you, we have a good time doing it. Each summer, Inga, Julie, and Kevin volunteer to put on the Montana Royal Junior Livestock Show in Kalispell, MT. That is jam-packed week centered around something we love; the youth in our community AND agriculture. We get the chance to see hundreds of kids learn and grow with their animals, in a lifestyle similar to the ones we’ve provided for our own children.
We also love motorcycles! That’s actually how we all met. Julie and her family own a motocross track and Kevin used to own a motorcycle shop. Too crazy to believe? Here’s the pictures to prove it.
And you’d be hard-pressed to miss our shenanigans in the office like this dance party with our staff. Like we said, it’s hard not to have fun if you’re hanging with us!
8 - Dedication
One thing we hope you learn about us is that we never give up and we never settle for average. It’s probably the reason that we decided to begin franchising our business--we knew there was another level for us to strive for. Beyond our dedication to our business, we are dedicated to serving you with the same attitude of “never give up and never settle.” We’re the type of people who don’t believe the job starts at nine and ends at five. We are ready to stay up through the night ensuring that everything is taken care of in the way that it should be.
We think that this is another trait we picked up from our Christian walk. When you stop to think about just how dedicated God is to loving us and staying by our side, it’s hard to not draw inspiration from that. We’re pretty glad that He never gives up and never allows us to settle for mediocrity in our own lives. It’s not abnormal to sometimes feel that we deserve to be left behind by God for all the mistakes and misguided times in our lives. But He continues to walk with us and forgive us, because no one is better at being dedicated to seeing something out than our Creator.
9 - Courage
Working in the in-home care business can be a bit scary. Sometimes it’s hard to muster up the strength to continue to see the heart-breaking struggles some of our clients endure. It’s also hard to not constantly feel heartbroken for the families who we work for. The only way we get through these hard times is courage. We believe courage and resilience is the foundation of leadership. We strive to be the leaders who will lead their team into battle, not ones who will watch from the safety of the ridge.
We try and manifest that into our lives the best we can. We seek to have courageous conversations that most would rather not. Our team finds courage in suiting up for work each day with a positive joyful attitude, even if they aren’t feeling that way at home. Courage is not last on this list because it’s less important. It’s listed lastly because without it, we couldn’t hold the values we do. It takes courage to share your faith with the world. It takes courage to serve families who are struggling. It takes courage to do things that are uncomfortable.
We gladly seek opportunities to be courageous every chance we get.
Agape Love
Honesty, transparency, dependability, accountability, respect, joy, fun, dedication, and courage. We believe that these are the core values of agapé love and this is how we reflect them in our EPAGA love. Our core values aren’t just writing on a fancy sign in our office, they are the DNA of who we are and who we serve. We couldn’t do what we do without them.
Whether you have worked with us, will work with us, or will never get the chance to meet us, we hope that we have shown you what we believe is the highest form of love--agapé love. We began this amazing journey with a burning desire to help families in need of an in-home care professional, but we quickly realized that it was much more than that. We are creating a platform to share our love and joy for people. We feel very lucky to have this opportunity to show you who we are and what guides our lives and hope that it influences you live a life that is more honest, transparent, joyful, fun, and courageous while you continue to seek opportunities to be a more dependable, accountable, respectful, and dedicated human being.
Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about who we are! We hope you, too, can provide care and bring joy to the people in your life.