Shantel Leininger

Deaf Educator | Mission Work | Summit Christian Academy

Shantel Leininger studied deaf education, speech, and biology at the University of Arizona. While working on her degree she lived and worked at the Arizona State School for the Deaf and Blind. She lived with the elementary deaf girls as their room mom and worked with the multi-handicapped children and also the children coming to the school to be evaluated. After transferring from Arizona she used her ASL skills and degree in speech and biology tutoring a girl who was slowly becoming deaf. She has not only used her signing skills in the U.S. but had the opportunity to sign at the Deaf School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and conduct hearing tests at local orphanages.

Shantel is married to her college sweetheart, Ryan Leininger and has four beautiful daughters; Natasha, Kendall, Ashlyn, and Eliana. She is President of a non-profit her daughters started, From One Child to Another, whose purpose is to inspire and equip children to use their passions to make a difference in their community and around the world for God’s glory. In 2008, she co-founded Summit Christian Academy, a University-Model School® in Boerne, Texas. She is still currently active in the school in many areas including the academic committee and her husband serves as President of the Board. Currently, she is on the board of Mercy International and Moroto Ministries which serve the poorest of the poor in Haiti and in the tribal areas in Uganda. She has partnered with Hope for Orphans and is the Coordinator of Hope for Orphans Kids and together they have created a video curriculum to help teach children about orphan care and ministry and how they can become involved even at a young age. She is passionate about helping children find their voice and helping the lost and lonely. She enjoys public speaking along with her daughters and is working on her first published book about her family’s experiences in Africa and Haiti and the trials they faced while helping others.