Leah Taylor Trotter
Leah Taylor Trotter is an ordained pastor, licensed attorney, and author whose life of faith has taken her from smuggling Bibles into the former Soviet Union to preaching in prison. As a chaplain at Ground Zero after 9/11, she has lived her calling to bring light into dark places. Compelled by awe for a mighty God and deep love for His Word, she seeks to help others know the Author. Now based in Anchorage, Alaska, she writes and teaches with that same passion. Her current project, The Emmaus Legacy, continues the theological legacy of her grandfather, Princeton-trained theologian Byron Nelson, revealing how Scripture forms one cohesive story of love and redemption.
About Leah
About Leah
Leah Taylor-Trotter is an ordained pastor, licensed attorney, and Bible teacher who brings clarity, careful reasoning, and pastoral sensitivity to biblical theology. Her background combines formal training in law, education, and ministry with decades of experience teaching, mentoring, and ministering in a variety of settings. These experiences have shaped her desire to help readers see the unity of Scripture and Christ in the Old Testament.Leah graduated with a degree in English Education on a full-tuition, full-room-and-board academic scholarship. During college she competed nationally in speech and debate, earning recognition as the Outstanding Congresswoman at debate nationals and placing among the top ten overall competitors in the nation at the speech nationals. She later taught English in inner-city high schools in New York City and Los Angeles, receiving her Principal’s Outstanding Teacher Award for classroom excellence.After earning her Juris Doctor with honors from the University of Texas School of Law, she clerked for the Supreme Court of Texas. While in law school, she won the school’s moot court competition and was selected as an Alliance Defending Freedom Blackstone Fellow. She is licensed by the Texas Bar and for more than two decades has assisted her husband, General Counsel of the Justice Foundation, with pro bono legal work involving constitutional and religious-liberty matters. Her legal training informs her writing with careful reasoning, attention to detail, and deep respect for the authority of God’s Word.While living in New York City, she witnessed the attacks of September 11 from about a mile away and later served for four months at Ground Zero, praying with and ministering to first responders as a chaplain for her Manhattan church. Her ministry has also included training and service with Youth With A Mission in Tyler, Texas.Leah currently teaches Scripture at her church in Anchorage, Alaska. For the past two years she has taught from The Emmaus Legacy using a two-semester companion Bible study she created. More than sixty participants have taken part in the course, including pastors, missionaries, students, and lay readers. Many participants have invited family and friends, five repeated the entire year-long course, and one participant taught the full course to his home church.Together with her professor husband, Leah has served as academic advisor to a large Christian college ministry group, mentoring many young women over the last fifteen years. She leads a home life group for her church and regularly ministers at the Alaska state women’s prison, where she preaches in chapel services and teaches small-group Bible studies. Through experiences in classrooms, courtrooms, churches, prisons, and places of suffering like Ground Zero, Leah has spent decades listening to the questions people carry about God and his Word, questions that shape the pastoral tone and teaching approach of The Emmaus Legacy.Leah is the youngest granddaughter of Byron C. Nelson, a Princeton-trained theologian and prolific author whose 1937 book On the Way to Emmaus inspired this project. She lives in Eagle River, Alaska, where she raised and homeschooled four children, kayaks Alaska’s crystal clear waters, and continues to develop and teach from this Emmaus project.
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About Her Grandfather
The Emmaus Legacy is adapted from On the Way to Emmaus
by Leah's grandfather, Byron C. Nelson, originally published in 1937 by Augsburg Publishing House.In this photo, he's holding Leah as a baby --- a reminder of the legacy that inspired this new edition. Read his full biography below.
Byron C. Nelson (1893-1972)
Leah’s grandfather, Byron Christopher Nelson, was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on December 23, 1893, to U.S. Congressman and attorney John Mandt Nelson and suffragette Thea Johanna Stondahl Nelson. As a child, Byron often traveled with his parents from Wisconsin to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Much of what Leah knows about her grandfather comes from family stories and a treasured keepsake—an autobiographical photo album her grandparents compiled for their 35th anniversary.Athletic, quick, and creative, Byron excelled at fishing, skiing, sailing, skating, and swimming. In high school he served as yearbook editor and football quarterback, and at the University of Wisconsin, he was captain of the swim team, president of the gymnastics team, and a member of both the Athletic Board and the Iron Cross honorary society. He lost the student body president election by just two votes. One of his oil paintings once hung in the University of Wisconsin Student Union. He married his college sweetheart, Anita Valentine Pleuss, in 1917—perhaps winning her heart, as family lore says, with his signature bright red ties.Byron earned multiple degrees, including a Bachelor of Divinity from Luther Theological Seminary (1922) and a Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary (1926). He also pursued graduate study in genetics at Rutgers University in New Jersey.His grandson Dr. Paul Nelson later published a collected volume of Byron’s writings, The Creationist Writings of Byron C. Nelson, in the series Creationism in Twentieth-Century America (Routledge, 2021). That anthology includes an extensive biographical profile. On the Way to Emmaus—the inspiration for Leah’s The Emmaus Legacy—was not included in the anthology. Unlike Byron’s more academic works on Creationism, this small volume reveals his imaginative and devotional side.In On the Way to Emmaus, Byron broke new ground by dramatizing Scripture—a creative method considered unconventional in 1937, nearly a century before The Chosen series or Jonathan Cahn’s Book of Mysteries. In his original foreword, reproduced in the Legacy Edition, Byron addresses his critics who warned that “putting words in the mouth of Jesus” was irreverent. After a year of prayer and reflection, he concluded that faithful preaching has always expanded upon Scripture to communicate the heart of God. Drawing on that conviction, he imagined which Old Testament passages Jesus might have shared with His disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:14–35).On the Way to Emmaus is a tender portrayal of Jesus walking with His followers through grief and doubt—a theme Byron himself seemed to know well. Byron’s life was marked by both triumph and trauma. In college, he became a political pawn in an attempt to unseat his father from Congress. During World War I, as a conscientious objector, he volunteered on Canadian farms to increase wartime food supply. The headlines branded him a “slacker”—a coward and unpatriotic. Overnight, his reputation at the University of Wisconsin collapsed. The experience, his daughter later recalled, humbled him and drove him to seek meaning beyond popularity and success.Eventually, Byron entered the ministry, believing his struggles had prepared him to comfort others. Later, pressed to support the war effort, he served as a combat medic, witnessing the horrors of the front lines. Convinced by Mein Kampf that Hitler must be stopped, he returned to Europe as a chaplain during World War II, where he was delighted to learn that his book After Its Kind was required reading for military chaplains.The Great Depression brought its own hardships as he struggled to support a family of six on a rural pastor’s salary. One of their children, John Byron, died before his first birthday, and Leah’s mother was sent to live with relatives to continue her schooling. Yet the Nelson home was filled with faith and joy. Leah’s mother wrote in an article for the Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly:“To my dad’s credit, I was never conscious of poverty or lack of earthly blessings, nor did I ever fear for the future. Dad constantly rejoiced in his Creator, Redeemer, and Holy Spirit. He knew that the greatest treasure he could offer us was a firm faith in our Savior through His revealed Word, the Bible. I thank him for that.”Byron’s steadfast faith shaped the generations that followed. Leah grew up hearing him called “the first defender of Creationism from a scientific viewpoint.” She often saw his books—After Its Kind, The Deluge Story in Stone, and A Catechism on Evolution—on her family’s shelves. Ironically, it was her Harvard-trained physician father who first set out to challenge Byron’s beliefs through scientific study. Those very studies, and the conversations that followed, led Leah’s dad to faith in Christ.Among Leah’s cherished keepsakes is an antique-framed painting of roses her grandfather created (bearing his father’s congressional signature on the back) as well as a photograph of Byron, dressed in a suit, solemnly holding her as an infant. He passed away soon after, leaving her with no firsthand memories—only the photo and the legacy of his writings. Among Leah’s most treasured mementos is a book her grandfather inscribed to her four-year-old mother:“Read and love the Bible, little one. Study its relations. Pray for God’s blessings as you do so, and you’ll have a treasure in your heart that is worth more than all the world, because that treasure is ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory.’ Lovingly, your father.”Leah now has a heart of love and gratitude to her “grandpa.”
Ground Zero Chaplain
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Leah took a leave from law school to serve as a chaplain with her midtown Manhattan church. For four months, she spent hundreds of hours at Ground Zero—first on the pile, then in the pit—ministering among the ruins of the World Trade Center. She prayed with first responders, debriefed security personnel, and escorted the fallen and recovery workers in solemn processions to the morgue.Fifteen years later, Leah began a year and a half of counseling to process the trauma of those months. Out of that healing journey came more than twenty songs—raw reflections of grief, faith, and restoration. Two of them are shared here: her first, Freedom in a Trashcan, and her last, 9/11 Responder Song.
The Emmaus Project
Public Speaking
Leah has loved speaking for as long as she can remember—perhaps a little too much for her teacher in her one-room Christian primary school. Her enthusiasm for words quickly found its purpose: she went on to win awards in high school speech, debate, drama, and the VFW Voice of Democracy competition; later, in college, she excelled at national debate and speech tournaments. In law school she and her partner were her school’s moot court winners.Before law school, Leah taught high school English, where she was known for making literature come alive for her students. Yet her greatest joy has always been sharing about Jesus—whether through Youth With A Mission (YWAM) or her home church.Today, she continues to speak on the transformative power of God’s Word, often drawing from her manuscript The Emmaus Legacy and the story of redemption that has echoed through the centuries.
Contact
Thank you for your interest in getting in touch with Leah Taylor Trotter. Please complete the form below to send her a message. Alternately, feel free to call or text at
210-264-7470.
The Emmaus Legacy: A Journey Through Suffering to Redemption
A heartbroken Jewish couple leaves Jerusalem after witnessing their beloved Rabbi’s crucifixion. As they trudge the long road home to Emmaus, a mysterious teacher joins them. Step by step, he reveals that God has woven His love and redemption into the very fabric of their history. His plan for the Messiah to suffer and die has been proclaimed from the beginning, fulfilled in their midst.As their eyes are opened to the risen Jesus, their sorrow transforms to revelation, their despair to awe. Step onto that dusty road and rediscover Christ through their journey, seeing anew how God’s great legacy of love has been scripted through every page of Scripture.This 55,000-word work of narrative theology is adapted from a 1937 treasure by Leah’s grandfather, Byron C. Nelson, a Princeton-trained theologian. In this modern legacy edition, Leah bridges past and present, reviving a timeless story of redemption for a new generation of readers.
Endorsements
“I have no doubt that my dear father would rejoice to know the message he desired to communicate has been wonderfully enhanced in this exceptional work by my niece Leah.”
–Priscilla Mitchell, daughter of the original author“I cried, cheered, learned, pondered–a delightful journey. This work is important and needs to be accessible.”
–Janet Weiss, retired oil company president and church board member“An inspiring story–incredibly educational, yet deeply moving and easy to understand. A lifetime of research by both grandfather and granddaughter provides the reader a rich banquet. Highly recommended!”
–Allan Parker, The Justice Foundation president“This is the heartwarming, hope-filled story of what Jesus' Luke 24 conversation with his disciples might have sounded like. The ‘Gospel according to the Old Testament’ becomes amazingly clear. Bravo!”
–Charles R. Taylor, MD, cardiologist“A fun read! I appreciated the Scripture references that anchor the ideas presented.”
–Pastor Blaine Schmidt“I’ve always loved the Old Testament, but reading this book sparked even greater love for it. It’s the love story God has written out for us over time!”
–Courtney Schuman, nurse
Foundations of Legacy
10-Week Emmaus
Bible Study
Semester One
You’re invited to walk alongside Jesus on the road to Emmaus for a masterclass in Messianic prophecy, showing how the Scriptures have foretold His suffering, death, and resurrection. From Adam and Eve to the Exodus to the Tabernacle, this study connects the prophetic threads woven across millennia, revealing our astonishing legacy of salvation and love fulfilled in Christ.Each week, participants listen to a chapter from The Emmaus Legacy and then explore the foundational Scriptures that inspired that chapter. Along the way, you’ll encounter the breathtaking contrast between the vastness of our Creator, who orchestrated His Redemption Plan from Genesis to Revelation, and Immanuel’s intimate desire to walk with us even in our pain and doubt.
Endorsements
“As a seasoned believer, I rarely find a Bible study that both challenges and entertains me. This does both! Be prepared to feel the dust on your feet and the hand of the Good Shepherd as He pulls you gently along the road to the place your soul longs to call home, His arms.”
–Pastor Mari Nordby“A skillfully written, spirit-led revelation of the talk between Jesus and his disciples. The insight and parallels throughout the study are remarkable. Well done!”
–Tammy Galipeau“This study answered my prayer for God to open the Scriptures to me like he did for the disciples on the way to Emmaus. Such a rich and amazing study as we have delved into the prophecies about Jesus.”
–Angelica Cavanaugh
Legacy Proclaimed
10-Week Emmaus Bible Study
Semester Two
You’re invited to walk alongside Jesus on the road to Emmaus for a masterclass in Messianic prophecy, showing how the Scriptures have foretold His suffering, death, and resurrection. From the Tabernacle to the Psalms and Proverbs, this study connects the prophetic threads woven across millennia, revealing our astonishing legacy of salvation and love fulfilled in Christ.Each week, participants listen to a chapter from The Emmaus Legacy and then explore the foundational Scriptures that inspired the chapter. Along the way, you’ll encounter the breathtaking contrast between the vastness of our Creator, who orchestrated His Redemption Plan from Genesis to Revelation, and Immanuel’s intimate desire to walk with us even in our pain and doubt.
Endorsements
“A great blessing! I love the way this study ‘personalizes’ the Bible passage. I’m getting to know Jesus better. I liked the study so much I’m sharing with my weekly home church. The lessons are a great pathway for meaningful discussion. I highly recommend it!”
–John Yurman“A well-written, well-narrated, and creatively drawn story with a solid representation of the teachings from Scripture. Come along!”
–Bob Price“This study provides insight into Old Testament prophetic scriptures, allusions, and types that were fulfilled when Jesus cried out, ‘It is finished!’”
–David Pruitt“Exciting to learn (along with the disciples) the ways that Father God foreshadowed the love and sacrifice of Jesus all the way back to Genesis. It has strengthened my faith and deepened my knowledge of the character of God, his faithfulness, and unfailing love for us.”
–Kim Robuck